ought to have in enabling us to bear the disappointments that may sometimes occur to diminish the pleasure we had anticipated in its observances. at all times, but especially on the Sabbath, to be prepared as much to bear with resignation the latter as to indulge with holy delight the former. What are the feelings which involuntarily affect our hearts, when we first behold the light of morning? If we have enjoyed any degree of repose, been preserved from the perils of darkness, and the attacks of disease, our waking moments will, perhaps, be accompanied with irresistible emotions. of heart-felt thankfulness; and the first words that escape our lips (unless we are completely choaked with the cares and business of this world) will be those of the warmest gratitude to the Giver of all good. Impressed with the importance of religion, many individuals conscientiously employ the whole of this sacred day either in public, or private acts of devotion, repairing from the church to their closets with undeviating punctuality. Now this habit is doubt less highly laudable, and likely to produce very beneficial effects, in weaning our affections from earthly things, and fixing them where alone true joys are to be found. But to estimate the advantages that are derived from this or any other established system of spending the Sabbath, it is necessary to examine the temper and disposition manifested when unexpected circumstances arise to thwart our usual wishes and intentions. The real benefit which our devotions produce on the heart is most apparent, when those every day little inconveniencies assail us, from which no person however retired, or season however important, can wholly claim exemption. A slight indisposition, the loss of something we prized beyond its real value, an unexpected interruption to our sacred retirement, the sickness or misfortune of a friend requiring the sacrifice of some of those valuable hours which every rightly disposed mind would wish to call exclusively its own, in order to dedicate them to those higher pursuits for which they were obviously designed; these, and various other minor trials, which our respective situations in life abundantly supply, afford the best possible opportunities of evidencing the effect which our observance of the Sabbath produces upon our hearts and conduct, It not unfrequently happens that a day begun with spiritual joy and gratitude may close with anguish and disappointment; and we ought My voice shalt thou hear betimes, O Lord; early in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up." our If such be our sensations at the beginning of ordinary days, the morning of the Sabbath will surely excite emotions of a yet sublimer nature, and all our faculties will be quickened and invigorated by the contemplation of the spiritual blessings vouchsafed to us: language will be, "Praise the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, praise His holy Name." "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." How encouraging is the assurance of meeting our God in his house of prayer! "Where two or three are gathered together in my Name, there am I in the midst of them." How animating the hope that he will listen to our praises and thanksgivings for past mercies; and our supplications for a continuance of his inestimable blessings! But after having enjoyed these high privileges in anticipation, ought we not constantly to bear in mind, that we may have duties assigned to us by our heavenly Father on this, as well as on every other day, of a very different na. ture to what our habits and incli nations would lead us to perform? Unwelcome opportunities may be A afforded us for displaying the fruits of our faith, in cheerful submission to the will of God; and we may be called to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in a way we little anticipated or desired. A humbleminded Christian, immersed in spiritual contemplation, would perhaps be likely to disregard, on this day, the Divine command of letting his "light shine before men," did not occcasional unwished-for events call those best affections into exercise, which so strikingly evidence the sanctifying effects of Christianity on the heart and life of its converts. But setting aside these greater disappointments, any circumstance, however trivial, that occurs to intrude upon that time which we had appropriated to higher pursuits, and to thwart our wishes for spiritual enjoyment, ought not to be viewed as a mere casual annoyance to be endured, but as a trial provided for us by unerring Wisdom, for calling into action those Christian graces so peculiarly pleasing in the sight of God. The most careful arrangements for privacy and retirement cannot always secure us from the interruption of those persons who count the Sabbath a weariness. Perhaps, also, even the necessary instruction of servants or children; an attention to the spiritual wants of the poor; an arduous duty in a Sunday-school; or other obligations of a similar kind may be found occasionally to interfere with that abstracted devotion which we were desirous to indulge. Now though it is painful to have our feelings thus checked when we wished them to be most ardent, yet the real Christian will instantly perceive the hand of his Maker pointing out to him new duties, less pleasing, probably, at first view, but not on that account to be performed with reluctance. Instead of shewing a cold reserve of manner, and much less an appearance of displeasure, we ought to seize with avidity the opportunity thus afforded us of endeavouring to ad- ASEVIA. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. I HAVE just been reading the life of the eminently pious and revered Brainerd, the American Missionary; and it has suggested to me the following cursory observations, which I should be glad to see in serted in the pages of your miscellany. The life and creed of the holy Brainerd, taken together, should, I think, make those persons seriously reflect, who will not allow us to try the soundness of our faith by any other evidence than a sort of insulated acceptance of Christ as our Saviour; permitting (as it should seem) no examination, either of heart or life, as to any incipient, growing, or abiding conformity to God's holy law, lest our comfort and liberty in Christ should be thereby abridged. If any persons thus disposed be really pious characters, I cannot but ob serve, that the more pious they are, the more ought they to be shocked at the alarming tendency of their own sentiments. For the very entertainment of such sentiments, in violent opposition to the sentiments and practice of such eminently holy and confessedly evangelical men as Brainerd, might well induce them to inquire whether the happiness and liberty of which they fear to be abridged may not be a happiness not preceded by conflict, and a liberty not obtained by victory. That Brainerd's life was holy, and that his faith and preaching were purely evangelical, will be generally allowed. But the following passage in his Memoirs, to which I would direct the attention of the persons under consideration, stands in such evident opposition to their notions of Christian liberty, and expresses so great an abhorrence of the ill tendency of such opinions, that I cannot forbear transcribing it; and the statements of this good man, in this matter, may perhaps derive some force from the circumstance of their being his dying testimony. "He was much occupied (says one of his biographers), in speaking of the nature of true religion of heart and practice, as distinguished from its various counterfeits; expressing his great concern that the latter did so much prevail in many places. He often manifested his great abhorrence of all such doctrines and principles in religion, as in any wise savoured of, and had any (though but a remote) tendency to Antinomianism; of all such notions as seemed to diminish the necessity of holiness of life, or to abate men's regard to the commands of God, and a strict, diligent, and universal practice of virtue, under a pretence of depreciating our works, and magnifying God's free grace. He spoke often with much detestation of such discoveries and joys as have nothing of the nature of sanctification in them, and do not tend to strictness, tenderness, and diligence in religion, and meekness and benevolence towards mankind: and he also declared, that he looked on such pretended humility as worthy of no regard that was not manifested by morality of conduct and conversation." Spiritual Suitable to such opinions were the fervent breathings of his soul, when about to resign it into the hands of his Redeemer; and really when we bring the system or theory to which I now allude (supposing it to be exhibited in its best possible practical influences in the life), into a comparison with the power of the Gospel in all its substantial workings and effects upon the heart and life of the simple-minded and holy Brainerd-what is it? It seems to shrivel up immediately into a mere conceit; flattering those who entertain it with a fanciful holiness, connected too often with spiritual pride and listlessness of moral exertion; but in little alliance, I fear with the warm emotions of a truly renovated soul, or the correspondent self-renouncing devotedness of a holy life. things, indeed, are spiritually discerned. But should we not be careful, even in the sober contemplation of the wonderful mystery of the Gospel, lest we attach an undue degree of actual holiness, to the mere clearness of our views? What is the argument on which such a system is founded? I am sure I know not. Is it maintained that the law has so effectually done its work, by introducing us to the Gospel, and the Gospel has done its work so effectually too, by delivering us from the law, that the sinner may look upon his own work as done also, and, sinner as he still is, feel that he has nothing to do but to rejoice in this all accomplished work and "finished salvation?" Is it further maintained, that of this joy he is sure to rob himself, if he do but cast a humble self-abasing look at that standard of all perfection-the holy law of God? I will not assert, that these questions may not seem to carry the matter rather further than would be allowed by the parties concerned; but I have no doubt of it being an admitted tenet that, being now under the Gospel, we have nothing more to do with the Law, either in one shape or another. It is, I am sure, true that we are SO far set free from the moral as well as the ceremonial law, that the law can no longer say to us, "Do this and live;" it can no longer make obedience to its dictates the meritorious condition of life. It has lost its power of prescribing conditions. But as we are still "under the law" (that very law) "to Christ," what Christ requires of us, with respect to the law is, that, being under the means of grace too, we must, while life remains, earnestly and anxiously endeavour to bring ourselves to a nearer and nearer conformity to that holy law. Hence we must necessarily look for the evidence of our being his disciples, true believers, and the children of God, at the very least, in the anxiety and solicitude which we feel for holiness and in the earnestness of our endeavours after it, and, therefore, to a certain degree in the success which attends them; never, however, forgetting that the very power and even the will which the believer possesses, to do the things acceptable to God, are as much a free and Divine gift as pardon, justification, or any other part of the blessings of redemption. Boasting, therefore, is as much excluded by this system as by that which professes to be so exclusively levelled against it; for when the humble Christian looks to his heart and life for the fruits of faith, in order to ascertain the safety of his state, he does not view these fruits as self-derived, but as divinely imparted, and therefore as constituting a new new claim to humble gratitude, and self-renunciation, rather than an inducement to spiritual pride or an argument against the fulness and a freeness of our redemption. The salvation of Christ is, indeed, "finished" salvation; nothing remains which is not provided for; and among other things, it is provided for, that being yet sinners, we should be always kept in a holy, active, watchful, praying state, till we arrive at heaven. This, I am sure, is a very fit state for sinners, who are aspiring after a state where they shall be sinners no longer. Yet with all this, there is ample provision made likewise for the happiness of all holy mourners;joy for their sorrow; peace for their inquietude; tranquillity for their fears; and hope, bordering upon something like celestial assurance, for their doubts and pertur bations. Conscience will be at peace; "the Spirit still witnessing with their spirits, that they are the children of God." But if this be the state of a Christian's mind, then I am sure that comfort, and hope, and peace, and joy can no otherwise be brought to outweigh the opposite emotions, than by a continual recurrence to those very evidences which some men seem disposed to explode, in order that they may leap into all their happiness at once-and it may be, before they are quite fit for its enjoyment. In no other sense than as here stated, can I use the expression," a finished salvation;" "a unless, indeed, men go so far as to say they have actually ceased to be sinners. If our salvation is so finished that nothing remains to be done in us than what is done, it is a very poor salvation: for we are far enough yet every one of us from holiness and happiness, from God and heaven. It is replied, We are as sure of all this as we shall be when we come to the actual enjoyment of it all-therefore it is finished;-and why then need we look for evidences? I shall only say in return, that without evidence, we can be sure of nothing; and the more important that thing is of which we would be sure, the more diligent, and in some sort, perhaps, it is equally certain that it does distrustful, we should be in the investigation of our evidences. G. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. HAPPENING to meet with the following remarks, in a work intitled "A Letter to an English Nobleman," and written on another subject, I thought they conveyed, as far as they extend, (for they do not embrace the higher points of evangelical preaching) no unfair view of two leading classes into which our clergy are divided. As an addition, however, to the first paragraph, the author should have stated that the clergy to whom he refers distribute tracts, and even comments, with fully as much zeal as if they did little or nothing "And here, uninfluenced either by prejudice or party, I am anxious to detail facts, and not to disguise them. It may not, therefore, be irrelevant to state the two modes of instruction now practised by the pastors of our Ecclesiastical Establishment, for the political security of the state, and for the moral happiness of the people. The first and best mode consists in the circulation of the Scriptures, pure and without alloy, unaccompanied with either notes or comments, through the medium of Bible Associations, among all classes of society not impervious to the truth, and enforcing its motives and sanctions by the means of public preaching and private exhortations. "The latter mode is partly negative: it consists, not so much in actually opposing as in paralyzing and discouraging the noble and Christian efforts of these Associations, from motives inexplicable to me, and perhaps undiscoverable even by those who thus virtually oppose them. "It is also partly positive. It is true it consists in recommending the study of the Scriptures; but not consist in inquiring whether such directions have been followed; ; or, if so, what have been the individual fruits of such pastoral admonitions. "It consists in preaching coldly and periodically the deductions of human wisdom from the word,' but not the word itself. "It consists in enforcing the practice of morality, by pointing out the rewards of virtue and the punishment of vice; but it does not consist in prescribing and enforcing the means by which the heart is to be purified, from which alone, as from its genuine source, pure morality can alone flow. "It consists in a due performance of what is called duty,' as prescribed by human authority. "It consists in a solemn exterior and a due decorum; but it does not consist in acting up to the spirit of the original commission as given by our great Master; 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature;' · Be instant in season and out of season.' No; far from it: but its advocates, being wise in their generation,' adopt such means as are most conducive to the ends they respectively propose to attain. "This latter mode is most prevalent, as possessing decided advantages over the former, by affording leisure for indulgence, and more time for the recreations and amusements of polished society; but above all, it is strictly, canonical, as it does not violate but is completely within the letter of human authority." |