who so understands the words of God, that he not only believes, but loves the proposition; he, who consents with all his heart, and, being convinced of the truth, does also apprehend the necessity, and obeys the precept, and delights in the discovery, and reduces the notices of things to the practice of duty; he who dares trust his proposition, and drives it on to the utmost issue, resolving to go after it whithersoever it can invite him; this man walks in the spirit; at least thus far he is gone towards it; his understanding is brought in obsequium Christi, into the obedience of Christ. This is loving God with all our mind; and whatever goes less than this, is but memory and not understanding; or else such notice of things by which a man is neither the wiser nor the better3.

I may now, I trust, be allowed to appeal to the understandings of all before me, and especially of the younger part of my audience, whether the religious temper of heart, of which my text speaks, must not, from what I have advanced, be acknowledged by every candid inquirer to be essential to a just appreciation of

3 Discourses on Various Subjects, by Jeremy Taylor, D. D. Chaplain in ordinary to King Charles the First, and Lord Bishop of Down and Connor, vol. iii. p. 176. 8vo. 1807. London.

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real Christianity. I ask whether, on the one hand, it be not very consistent with the general plan of the divine government, that humility alone should lead to a cordial reception of sacred truth; and whether, on the other hand, it be not manifest, from the constitution and present state of human nature, that he only, who is really reduced to a reverential love to God, can understand and bow to His will, as it relates to the salvation of a sinner. I inquire, who is likely to deduce from the Scriptures, and to value, the true doctrine of original sin, of justification by faith alone, of the influences of the Holy Ghost, and of Christian obedience, except the man who, in consequence of having actually entered upon serious religion, has felt and deplored this depravity in his own case, and has accordingly discovered his absolute need of this unbounded mercy of the Saviour, and this powerful aid of the Divine Spirit. I ask, whether the language of the passage which I have been illustrating, compared with the general tenour of the word of God, does not confirm all these particulars, and, in fact, place the point beyond any reasonable doubt. I have brought before you no question of dubious or recondite criticism, no topic of perplexed disquisition or uncertain consequence: my object

• Consult Luke, xvii. 14, 17. 1 Pet. v. 5.

is to invite you from the tumults of debate to the tranquillity of obedience; from theory to practice; from pride, the parent of error, to a submission of heart to God. My design is to point out what may, to some at least, be a new method of sacred study; to open, what in geometry was declared to be impossible, a short and royal way to knowledge. My object is to exhort you to enter seriously on the study of religion, and to remind you of the importance of connecting with that study the most fervent supplications to God for that preparation of mind, which his Holy Spirit alone can impart, and which is essentially necessary to direct, sanctify, and accelerate your advances.

Do not say that the difficulties which present themselves deter you from this sacred attempt. However formidable they may appear, and whatever they may in reality prove to be, they will assuredly lessen as you proceed. It is not peculiar to divinity, that the views, which an advanced traveller can take with ease, should appear surprising and unattainable to the man who has not reached the same eminence, and whose position will not allow of so commanding, or so extensive a view; but that as he approaches the summit, his own prospect should be enlarged and brightened, and he should discover how contracted and obscure were his former apprehensions. This increasing facility, as the result

of regular and persevering application, is found to be the case in all the branches of literature and science; and that it should be eminently so in practical theology will, I trust, have clearly appeared from all that I have suggested on the present occasion.

To endeavour however to remove some of these difficulties, let me caution the inexperienced student from deriving any objection from those distorted, and, in some cases, impious representations of religious truth, which its pretended friends, but real enemies, have always the perverse industry to furnish, and by which the occasional, as well as periodical performances of the day, are too generally disgraced. If the Socinian or the Infidel, under whatever mask he may lurk of liberality on the one hand, or attachment to the national creed on the other, chooses to hold up the genuine doctrines of Christianity to ridicule or hatred, as contrary to the reason or detrimental to the morals of mankind, our text will explain to you the cause why he misrepresents what he does not love, and therefore is not likely to understand. An indifference of heart to religion, as manifested by the whole tenor of the life, but too completely accounts, in most instances, for the prevailing laxity in point of doctrine. Whilst the fear of God is so rare, it is a natural consequence that those sacred truths, which can only be received

by the obedient student, should be generally traduced and despised.

Nor let a hesitation concerning any one specific doctrine impede the execution of your design. Not to say that it is possible you may have taken an indistinct view of that particular point, certainly you may have forgotten that any one topic of religion, and this amongst the number, may be suspicious indeed, if it were to be exclusively and crudely insisted on; like a separate ingredient of a valuable medicine, which, when properly mingled with the rest, may be essential to the efficacy of the whole, though by itself it may be pernicious or even poisonous. This remark applies, not only to the divisions of truth to which I have adapted the principle of my text, but to every other. The doctrines of Christianity are to be judged of, not by their separate, but by their combined tendency. It is for the purpose of preventing any partial, and consequently dangerous, display of them, that God has appointed the ministers of his word and sacraments; it is in this point of view that the importance of education and literature, as tending to correct the judgment and to invigorate the powers of the mind, particularly appear; it is in this respect that reading the holy Scriptures, and meditation, and prayer and diligence, are among the brightest ornaments of the sacred character; it