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virtue as the sum and end of the gospel; and think the practice of it sufficiently secured by the precepts of our religion, which enjoin, under so awful a sanction, the highest moral attainments. But this extreme, though more refined, is equally dangerous with the former. It equally separates what God and the nature of the thing have joined together While it extols Christian precepts, it strips them of their main light, and life, and force. Though we grant that these pre cepts set before us a sublime pitch of virtue, we insist that the peculiar doctrines of the gospel, and these only, direct and oblige, encourage and enable us to practise it; and if these were set aside, the leading duties enjoined would have no obligation nor SURVEY meaning. It is generally agreed, that Christian duty may be summed up in love to God, to Jesus Christ, and our fellow-men. But this love neither is nor can be excited merely by the precepts enjoining it; but it is produced and nourished by a cordial belief of those doctrines, which hold up the proper objects and incitements of it, or which ex-practices are common, for which hibit the true character and relations of God, of Jesus Christ, of our human and Christian brethren. While these doctrines make us see and feel our corresponding obligations, they present motives which constrain us to fulfil them, and convey those divine influences, comforts and hopes, which render our obedience not only practicable, but fervent and delightful. They also give to our moral obedience a new and evangelical complexion, by connecting it with a deep impression of our ruin by sin,

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prescribed in order to bring him to repentance. And no complaint should be made to the church as a body, before every proper method has been used in private. But the duty of private reproof and admonition is SO generally neglected, that an offender is often quite surprised, if not irritated at the visit of brethren, who come to reprove. The faults of Christians are unnoticed, except by the tongue of slander. And it is not unfrequently the case, that those, who, for some reason, will not go and tell a brother a fault, which has been charged against him, nor even take pains to inquire, whether he is guilty, are among the first to circulate a report, which essentially injures, if not destroys his reputation.

Church members, who have received no personal affront, sometimes excuse themselves for the neglect above mentioned by saying, that the offending brother has done nothing to injure them, and therefore that it is not their particular concern to reprove. But even this excuse, so frequently made, shows that our churches are generally chargeable with seeking their own things, and not the things of Jesus Christ How little of the gospel spirit do men of such a character discov

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