St. PAUL, who was a most consummate master of reasoning, as well as a most attentive observer of mankind, seems to have discerned clearly and fully the nature of that influence; and hence it is that he so often and so triumphantly contrasts the bondage of the Mosaic with the liberty of the Christian dispensation. Curious it is, that however prepared he might be in his religious character to undergo persecution, yet in his civil capacity he lays no small stress on the circumstance that he was himself free born, and in the presence of the Roman governor boldly asserts those rights which his enemies had illegally, as well as inhumanly, violated. And it is impossible, surely, for any serious and enlightened reader of Sacred History, not to recognise the, operation of the same feelings, in that noble ardour with which he defends the glorious privileges of his Christian converts, and places them far above the condition of their Jewish brethren, subject as they were, and perversely

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perversely glorying in their subjection, to the heavy and galling yoke of the Mosaic law.

Without enlarging then at present on the subject of religious toleration, it may be worth our while to consider the nature of Christian liberty, and to enquire whether the restraints and austerities which some teachers would engraft upon it, are consistent with the doctrines or practice of Christ and his Apostles, or with the generally appa rent design of God, so far as we can humbly and reverentially trace it in his government both of the natural and moral world.

Now before we proceed in this examination it will be necessary just to remind you, that detached and particular texts are not to be interpreted in contradiction to the general tenor and declarations of Scripture; and that the sense of obscure or difficult pas sages in the writings of the Apostles must be ascertained, where it is possible, by their conformity with the recorded actions of Christ himself. For as that rule of life

which

which has been graciously communicated from Heaven, and which the blessed Author of it has emphatically and peculiarly distin-guished by the name of Truth, cannot contain any real contradiction, seeming incon-sistencies must be reconciled by appealing. to the known will of God, and the express import of clear and indisputable passages, Again, as practice is allowed to have greater weight than precept in ascertaining both the intention of an agent, and the soundness of a principle in the ordinary affairs of man. kind, so I think we may venture to declare that the precepts of the Apostles may, in all intricate or disputable cases, be best understood by unequivocal and direct refer-ence to the actual practice of our blessed Lord, or to their own in real life.

On a careful review then of the Holy Scriptures, I shall insist upon those partswhich leave no room for doubtful interpretations, and which therefore must be allowed to carry with them the authority of proof. in explaining other passages, which to our apprehension

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apprehension, after the lapse of many centuries, and in a different state of society, and amidst the use of other languages, may have become more or less obscure.

Now we find ourselves directly forbid den, even in our religious exercises of alms, prayer, or fasting, to use any ostentatious display of devotion, or any unusual appearance of austerity. Absurd and extragavant gestures which may attract notice, gloominess or dejection of countenance, affected professions of humility, severe, censorious and uncharitable judgment of our neighbours, strict and literal interpretations of metaphorical phraseology in contradiction to the spirit and general meaning of the context, usurped spiritual pre-eminence, blind and infatuated zeal for proselytism, moroseness, pride and selfishness, all these are strongly and repeatedly forbidden by the express words of Christ, in his sermon on the mount, and in his discourse recorded in the 23d chapter of St. Matthew. These were therefore the abuses of religion in his

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time, and perhaps, from the infirmity of human nature, these will continue to be so to the end of the world.

With regard to the practice of our Saviour, we may remark, that his first miracle was performed for an occasion of festivity'; we find him also constantly partaking of social intercourse with those about him, and so far was he from recommending or performing any acts of ascetic mortification, that he was reproached by the over-righteous sect of Pharisees as a glutton and a reine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. We find no particular acts of penance enjoined by him; no rigorous austerities recommended, no ceremonious strictness of outward deport ment practised by him; on the contrary, HE who was greater than the greatest, and wiser than the wisest, and holier than the holiest of the sons of men, lived among them as one of themselves. Not distinguished from the truly pious worshipper by unsocial gloom, or by uncharitable censoriousness, or by forbidding severity, or by haughty abstraction; but visibly and uniformly distinguished B. 4.

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