others Be holy; be humble; be charitable. Such dispositions are the most infallible stamp of a true follower of Christ on earth; and by such must we be qualified to be admitted into his presence, and to be made partakers of his joy in heaven.

PHILIP NICHOLAS SHUTTLEWORTH, D.D.

WARDEN OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD.

From a Volume entitled "Sermons on some of the Leading Principles of Christianity. By Philip Nicholas Shuttleworth, D.D. Warden of New College, Oxford; and Rector of Foxley, Wilts. 1829."

To this Volume the following Advertisement is prefixed:

"THE greater portion of the following Discourses were delivered on various occasions before the University of Oxford. The leading object of the Author in the selection of his subjects was that of counteracting those popular arguments and prejudices against the credibility of Revelation, which, however superficial, he conceives to stand not unfrequently most seriously in the way of the religious belief of those young persons, the eagerness of whose judgments has not yet been corrected by persevering habits of impartial reflection. It is with the hope that they may also be occasionally found serviceable to others, besides those to whom they were originally addressed, that they are now laid before the public."

275

WOE UNTO THEM THAT CALL EVIL GOOD, AND GOOD EVIL.

ISAIAH, V. 20.

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.

THE words of my text afford a salutary admonition against one of the most prevailing and seductive follies, to use no harsher an appellation, which attach themselves to those peculiar states of society, where large assemblages of persons of the same age and class of life, particularly the YOUNG and inexperienced, are much thrown together. Those who from their accidental situation in life have not had an opportunity of observing what are the particular seductions by which young and ingenuous minds are, upon their first entrance into the world, gradually led away from the strictness of their early principles, and rendered callous to the feelings of self-reproach, will hardly conceive how much of the real profligacy, which too often disgraces and embitters the maturer age of even the polished and well-educated, owes its first origin to the abuse and misapplication of words in questions of religion and morals amongst the young. It is from a serious

conviction of the fearful mischief thus occasioned, that I wish to avail myself of the present opportunity of pointing out some of the many evil consequences resulting from the indulgence of this pernicious habit; in the hope that, if perchance there should happen to be, amongst those who now hear me, any who, from thoughtlessness, levity, or any less venial motive, have been accustomed in the hours of social conversation to attempt to confound in the breasts of their companions, by sophistry or by ridicule, those primary notions of right and wrong which every good and unhackneyed mind feels strongly impressed upon itself, and the clear apprehension of which is indispensably requisite for purity of conduct, they will in mercy to themselves and others learn to check a propensity which too often leads to consequences far more destructive to both soul and body than they themselves foresee or even suspect.

Nothing, they may be assured, is so easy as to entrap the understanding, when it is off its guard in the hours of social relaxation, to the admission of plausible but most pernicious fallacies on the subject of morals and religion. Man is so completely a creature formed for society with his fellows, that the substances of the natural world do not with more mechanical certainty act and re-act upon one another, than the habits of his mind, the tone of his sentiments, and the associations of his ideas, depend upon and are influenced by the companions with whom he intercommunes, and the conversation in