rate. Conformity in such a case is only following a multitude to do evil. VERIDICUS. THREE DISCOURSES ADDRESSED BY M. (Concluded from p. 17.) SECOND DISCOURSE. It is very necessary that you should know what is due to you, lest you require more than is your right, which would be manifestly unjust; and yet this kind of injustice is commonly seen among persons of your rank, from an ignorance of their real condition. There are two species of greatness in the world; a natural greatness, and a dignity depending on the laws of civil society. The latter of these is artificial, and derives its origin from the will of men, who have enjoined, with great propriety, that certain marks of respect and honour shall be paid to a noble descent, and to those who are exalted to stations of dignity and importance. But the nobles are reverenced in one country, the plebeians in another; in one nation the elder sons inherit the rank and fortune of their parents, in another a preference is given to the younger sons. Whence arises this difference? Because the legislature chose to make it so. The thing was indifferent in itself before the law was enacted, but when this order was once established, it became just and right to comply with it. Natural dignity, which consists in real and useful qualities possessed by the body or the soul, rendering each more valuable in itself, as science, capacity, genius, virtue, health, strength, &c. is not dependant on the caprice of men. We owe certain duties to each species of greatness; but as they are dissimilar in their nature, the obligations by which we are bound, are like wise different. We owe to nobility certain external forms of ceremony, which the custom of civil society has established; and these expressions of respect ought always to be accompanied with a sincere acknowledgment of their propriety: this kind of homage is paid to the established laws of the kingdom, and does not imply that You now understand, Sir, what I mean by the two different kinds of obligation already mentioned; and may perceive, that it would be unjust to require esteem and regard on account of mere elevation of rank; or, for natural greatness, to demand that ceremonious attention which is only due to noble birth and high station. Mr. N. is a much better mathematician than I am; and in consequence of this superiority of talents, he would assume the right of precedence; but I tell him he quite mistakes. The knowledge of geometry confers a natural dignity on the possessor, and demands a preference of esteem, but mankind have not attached any outward forms of respect to it. I will, therefore, take place and precedence of him, while at the same time I will acknowledge him to be a much greater mathematician than myself. If you, therefore, who are a duke and a peer of the realm, are not satisfied with my standing uncovered before you, but require me to esteem you, I would request you to point out those good qualities which merit my sincere regard. If you can do this, I cannot, with justice, refuse compliance; but if you are destitute of all estimable qualities, the very demand would be unjust on your part, and you may rest assured, that you would never obtain your wishes, were you the greatest prince in the world. THIRD DISCOURSE. I AM desirous, Sir, of making you un- God is surrounded by people whose hearts glow with a divine charity, and who solicit him to bestow upon them the blessings of his kingdom; he may, therefore, with great propriety, be called the King of Charity. You are, likewise, surrounded by a small number of your fellow-creatures, over whom you exercise a species of dominion. These persons are full of concupiscence; they are attached to you by your power of gratifying their low and sensual appetites, and are importunate to have their worldly desires satisfied; so that you are, strictly speaking, a King of Concupiscence. Your empire, indeed, is of small extent; yet you are as much a monarch, in this respect, as the greatest sovereigns upon earth. They, like you, are kings of concupiscence, and their power is founded upon the possession of those things, by which the animal part of man's nature can be abundantly gratified. And since you have now become acquainted with your natural Christ. Observ. No. 2. condition, act consistently with it, and do not pretend to govern mankind by any other means than those which constitute you a king. The servile crowd have not been reduced to subjection by your superior bodily strength; do not presume, therefore, to govern them by force, nor to treat them with harshness. Gratify their reasonable desires, relieve their wants, take a pleasure in conferring benefits on them, and advance them to higher stations as much as you can, and you will then conduct yourself as a true king of concupiscence. What I have now said will not be of very great advantage to you, for if you proceed no farther, you may perish everlastingly; yet you will sink into perdition as a worthy and respectable man. Many people plunge into eternal ruin in the most absurd manner, by avarice, brutality, debauchery; by the indulgence of violent passions; by blasphemy, &c. The course of life, which I have described to you, is, without doubt, much more creditable than open profligacy; nevertheless, it is a stupendous act of folly for a man to lose his soul. I add, therefore, you must not rest contented with the character I have described; but despise concupiscence, with the empire it bestows, and aspire after the kingdom of God, all the subjects of which breathe the spirit of heavenly charity, and desire above all things the riches of divine love. There are other people who will direct you in the way of true felicity as well as I can; it may suffice, at present, if I have deterred you from pursuing that brutal course of life, in which so many persons of high rank are engaged, from a disgraceful ignorance of their real state and condition. dom, and his opportunities of acquir ing knowledge must, therefore, have been very limited. He seems, however, to have improved them to great advantage, and of this, even a cursory perusal of these extracts, will furnish considerable proof. They, doubtless, discover much depth of thought, and acuteness of remark, especially as it is to be remembered that they were familiar communications to a friend, and were never intended for the public eye. But that to which I wish principally to call the reader's attention, is the strain of rational, yet animated piety, which pervades them, and which evidently flowed from a mind deeply imbued with Christian principles. I remain, Sir, Your obedient servant, M. import with many, but they are the most momentous words which ever sounded in the ears of man. What is it, that makes many Christians so exceedingly warm, I would also ask, when you touch the least pin of that hedge of distinction they have set up between themselves and others, while you can easily observe the weightier matters of the law are neglected, but that the Gospel of the Grace of God is not heartily believed, and neither the hope of salvation nor the fear of God's anger, has properly affected their consciences? If men's consciences were thoroughly alive to these things, they would find much of their zeal about externals had been mere trifling, while they agreed with their opponents in the worst error of any-estrangement from the power and life of Christianity, in their experience and practice. I have a great veneration for our worthy forefathers, who contended not only for the forms and doctrines, but for the power and practice of Christianity, which seem to be too much lost sight of by most of their degenerate sons. How often do we hear orthodox sermons, very well adjusted according to the received system of doctrines, which are very little calculated to awaken the sleeping conscience, or otherwise to edify the Church of Christ! With many there is to be found a form of the gospel, as St. Paul speaks of a form of godliness, whereby they discuss some head of divinity. This is proved and illustrated, and the opposite errors are detected and condemned, and then a few inferences. drawn from the subject, distant from the people's consciences a thousand miles; just as if preaching the gospel were teaching men a science, which had little or no concern with their consciences at all. How different this from the manner of the Apostles! who always addressed their audience, applied the doctrines to their consciences, and let them know of what import such things were to them. Sce Acts ii. 14, 22, 29, 36, 38, 39. and Acts xiii. 16, 38 to 41, &c. I RECEIVED yours, of the 21st of March, which I read with pleasure, and I hope with profit. I confess I have been too long in acknowledging your kindness, but our friend will inform you how very little time I can command. I hope, however, we shall have more time shortly, when death shall have closed our eyes on all things under the sun. There is a glorious prospect before us! an incorruptible and eternal inheritance to which we have ready access through the blood of Christ. We shall then rest from all our labours, and join that honourable company which now surrounds the throne. There we shall serve him, and see his face, and be fixed as pillars in his Temple, to go out no more. O glorious day! when he shall rend these blue heavens above us, and put an eternal stop to the wheels of time. Eternity is a solemn, yet pleasing word, though it is also a dreadful one to those who have reason to conclude that they shall dwell for ever with devouring fire. How would the thought of eternity, were it really believed in and expected, sink the spirit of any man who knew himself a stranger to religion! What is the reason that men trifle so much with religion? It is because they have not believed heartily what the Scriptures reveal to us about an eternal state. Heaven and hell seem to be words of small I AM sensible of your kindness, in of Jan. 13, 1795. fering me your assistance to enable me to move in a higher sphere; but, for my own part, I see no other way pointed out by Providence in which I should serve our blessed Lord and Master, than by occupying in that lower sphere, wherein his infinite wisdom has seen fit to place me. I feel myself exceedingly defective in a small circle, and perhaps I should be much more so, if my sphere were enlarged; and whatever you may think of me, I know and feel myself to labour under so many moral and mental weaknesses and infirmities, as makes me well satisfied with my present private and comparatively hidden situation. As to differences of rank, place, or station, farther than as a Christian's usefulness is thereby diminished or enlarged, I see nothing in them that needs either to excite our ambition or dissatisfaction. For as a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth, so neither doth a Christian's happiness consist in his moving in a higher sphere, but it consists in his serving God singly, humbly, and content edly, in the station he is placed in, though it should be no higher than that of a servant or a bond slave. These things are but mere temporary differences, which God has designed to serve a purpose, but from which Chris. tians shall be altogether freed and disencumbered, when mortality shall be swallowed up of life. I feel, it is true, something of the embarrassment of a low and comparatively dependent station; but then I seem to experience interpositions of Divine Providence, in answer to my prayers, and the accomplishment of God's promises, in a way which I might not, were I in a more independent line of life. Besides, what a satisfaction is it, in any station, to think that we are placed there by our Heavenly Father, and enjoined to occupy therein till Christ come. He certainly is the best judge of every one's talents, and in what way he can best serve his own ends by them. God has given us hearts to wish well to his cause, so that we should rejoice to be instrumental in promoting it through the whole creation, may we not leave it to his wisdom to determine how far, or in what station, he will employ us, while he has ten thousand thousand fitter instruments at command? If he hath given us an inclination to his service, it is an unspeakable mercy, though he should not afford us such opportunities of extensive usefulness, as those he has seen meet to employ in another line. Alas! that we should be so unprofitable in the line wherein he has placed us, and that we should do so much less than we might, without other opportunity than he has been pleased to give. We cannot say that we have done what we might have done, nor that we have done any thing as we ought, when all is done. But blessed for ever be our Heavenly Father, who hath made us to know that Christ died for the ungodly, and that there is eternal life given through him. We hope, through the belief of this, and of all the promises of God, at length to overcome every hinderance to our salvation, and to join in the triumph and eternal praises of the Heavenly train of saints and martyrs, who came up out of great tribulation, and now behold the face of their heavenly Father, and of the Lamb in the midst of the throne; and the forethought of this eternal glory makes us even now anticipate the work of heaven, and begin the songs of Zion in a strange land. May, 19, 1795. YOUR favour was indeed refreshing. To hear of the propagation of the Gospelinis literally "good news from a far country." It yields another sort of relish to the mind of the Christian than to hear of sieges and battles crowned with success, and of the great extension of commerce, riches, and territory. These things, though, when lawfully acquired and well employed, they are not without their use, are but lying vanities compared with the true riches. The great men of this world carry on what they reckon their grand and masterly projects, in order to secure unto If themseves their earthly glory, splendor, and dignity; and the pulse of their soul beats high or low, irregular or uniform, accordingly as the aspect of these things varies. Could we look into the hearts of worldly men, and ob◄ serve the various vicissitudes of their minds, their hopes and fears, their joys and sorrows, we should perceive that these beat time to the vicissitudes which take place in their worldly attachments. Give them a state of things on earth suited to their inclinations, and you put life and spirit into them. Cross and disappoint them here, and the success of religion, or the extension of our Redeemer's kingdom, will yield them no consolation. Men seem to be so much of a piece with this earth, that as a certain writer observes, "they partake in all its pangs and paroxysms and tremulous motions. By the beating of their pulse you may know the state of things in this lower world, as if they had but one soul with it." And as the same author observes, in another place, were men's belief of what they were sent into the world for, to be judged of by their practice, and this belief written in their foreheads, then might one read, "Such an one born to put others in mind of his predecessor's name, and lest such a father should want an heir -Such an one to consume such an estate, and to devour the provenue of so many farms and manors-Such an one to fill so many bags and coffers, to sustain the riot of him that succeedsSome created to see, and make sport, to run after hawks and dogs, or to spend the time which their weariness redeems from converse with brutes, in making themselves such, by drinking away the little residue of wit and reason they have left; mixing with this gentle exercise their impure and scurrilous drolleries, that they may befriend one another with the kind occasion of proving themselves to be yet of the human race, by the only demonstration remaining, that they can laugh -Others born to trouble the world, to disquiet the neighbourhood, and to be the common plague of all about them, at least if they have any within their reach who value not their souls at so cheap a rate as they do-Others made to blaspheme their Maker, to rend the sacred name of God, and make proof of their high valour, and the gallantry of their brave spirits, by bidding defiance to heaven, and proclaiming their heroic contempt of the Deity and of all religion; as if they had persuaded themselves into an opinion, that because they had so prosperous success in conquering their humanity, and baffling their own fear, and reason, and conscience, death also will yield them as easy a victory, or be afraid to encounter men of so redoubted courage; that the God of Heaven, rather than offend them, will not stick to repeal his laws for their sakes, or never exact the observance of them from persons of their quality; that they shall not be called to judgment, or there only be complimented with respect, as people who bore much sway in their country, and could number so many hundreds or thousands a year; and that, at least, the infernal flames will never presume to touch so worthy personages, and that devils will be awed by their greatness, and fear to seize them, lest they should take it as an affront." This is exactly what we might suppose, to be the inward sentiments of many, were we to judge by their temper and conduct. How different from those of the real Christian! * * * * For the Christian Observer. Extracts from the Common-Place Book of a Country Clergyman. (Continued from p. 23.) ON REASON AND REVELATION. THE greater part of those who set up the claims of Reason against those of Revelation, seem to forget that Reason is a faculty, not like intuition, that sees the true natures, relations, or consequences of things, at a glance; but which requires nice and accurate management, with assiduous labour and cultivation, to make it a useful and safe guide to us, in avoiding error, and arriving at truth. It is not, like the senses of the body, perfect at once; but, like a diamond in its natural state, it is put rough into our hands to polish and improve by art and care. So much is this the case, that the improvement of our reason is taught by rule, and learnt as a science. Nothing more than the application of this remark is needful to confound our common infidels. Do they talk of their reason not suffering them to em |