ciled with such a passage as that wrong?"God is love;" every work which follows" perfect love cast of his hand, every act of his Provi eth out fear?" If all the true ser- dence, the face of nature, the hisད་ vants of God are to fear him, how is tory of our lives, all constitute, as it it that "perfect love," the perfect were, one vast volume, which prolove of God, "casteth out fear?" claims the love and the compassion Now, instead of at once replying to of God Almighty. The Bible may this question, I, perhaps, shall be for- be said to be one continued commengiven, if I venture to offer a few tary upon the single text, "God, is plain observations upon the four fol- love." True religion, therefore, lowing points: evidently casts out all such fear as this. True religion, I may say, "detests" such fear; holds no alli. ance with it, because it dishonours Him who is the great object of religion: it puts an idol in the place of God. Far, far, therefore, be such fear from all your readers, and from all who serve the God of Israel, the God of mercy, the " God who so loved the world, as to give his own Son to die for it.".

I. In the first place, there is, I conceive, a wrong fear in religion.

II. There is a fear which is right. III. In the first stages of religion, fear is apt to prevail over love. IV. In the last stages of religion, love gradually banishes fear.

In the first place, there is a fear in religion which is wrong; and of this I will mention two cases.

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That fear is wrong which proceeds from false views of God.There are minds which delight to draw the most tremendous pictures of the Almighty. They take, for instance, some earthly potentate, the severity of whose justice is softened by no touches of mercy; and, add ing to the portrait the qualities of infinite power and purity, they call this their God. I do not mean to say that such a state of mind is common; for excessive fear of God is by no means common, and, where it exists, often arises from other causes. Still such cases are to be found; and persons are still more commonly to be found, who, without going all the lengths of those to whom I have referred, yet form such notions of God, as are inconsistent with the love of God, and the hope of salvation. They contemplate God as armed for vengeance, not as clothed with love; as thundering from the throne of judgment, not as smiling on the seat of mercy. They re member that "in Adam all die," but forget that "in Christ all shall be made alive." Now, can we hesitate to say that such views of the character of God as are calculated to give us low notions of his mercy, and to fill us with slavish fear, are

Again; that fear is wrong which proceeds from wrong views of our own character.-There are persons who, with right views of God, have false views of themselves; who either mistake the requisitions of the Gospel, and then tremble because they do not comply with its demands; or who, though having just views of the Gospel, form a wrong estimate of their own faith and obedience to its doctrines. One individual, for instance, despairs because he has sinned after receiving the sacrament; another, because he imagines that he has committed the sin against the Holy Ghost; a third, because he thinks that he has not the witness of the Spirit in himself, which witness he imagines to be some direct communication from Heaven; another, because sin is not altogether subdued in him; another, because he is unable to discover, in his own works, sufficient to justify him in the sight of God. Now it certainly is very far from my intention to encourage myself, or your readers, to hope upon false grounds; to veil that sword of vengeance which is really lifted against the im. penitent; to increase our courage by concealing our enemies. On the

contrary, it will be my endeavour not more conveniently treat this pohereafter to shew, that fear-strong, sition than under the arrangement active, lively fear-is essential to already adopted.In the first place, the Christian character. But those then, that fear is right which pro. of whom I am now speaking are not ceeds from right views of the characeither the careless or the conceited. ter of God. God is described in the They are, some of them, men whose Bible as an infinitely pure and holy very humility, perhaps, is shutting Being. The angels are said not to their eyes upon the hopes and hap be pure in his sight. Indeed, these piness of the Christian. They are, heavenly hosts appear to have their some of them, men who bow so very other feelings absorbed in the conlow before the throne of God, as not templation of the holiness of God. to see the sceptre of mercy which is "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of stretched out to them. They are Hosts." Now he that is holy must men whose eyes are so occupied and hate sin; and accordingly of God it absorbed by the sword of wrath, is said, that he hates it with a "perwhich hangs over the path of the sin- fect hatred," with a batred, that is, ner, as not to see the sheath which unmitigated, as in man, by the mercy carries beside it for the true touches of inward depravity. He penitent. Is there any one of those hates it as perfect light abhors perwho is honouring this paper with fect darkness. But that which God his attention, wretched because he hates and punishes, man must eviis not sinless? Then let him remem- dently fear. We must fear, thereber, that Christ "came to seek and fore, the commission of sin. We to save that which was lost." Or is must fear the consequences of sin. he wretched because he has not All that is sinful must fiil us with some inward revelation of his own horror. We must shrink from it as safety? Let him remember, that the from the touch of poilution-as from witness of the Spirit is the "fruit" the dagger of death-as from that which the Spirit of God produces in which if unrepented of, if unwashed our lives and tempers. Or does he by the blood of Christ, is to separate despair because his own works, us from God, and to give us to the though holy, are not sufficiently holy "worm that never dies." But, it to justify him? Then let him call to may be asked, is not this to contradict mind, that we are "justified, not by what has been said before? I anworks of righteousness which we have swer, No. done," but that "according to His mercy He saves us ;" and that salvation is "the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord." In this case then, I venture to repeat the declaration--"Love casteth out fear," where "fear" is founded on false views of ourselves-where we expect in ourselves, that which God expects not where we are turning our eyes from the Rock of our re fuge when we are miserable though God permits and invites us to be humble and happy.

But I now turn to the second point which I proposed to notice, viz. that there is a fear in religion which is right; and perhaps I can

What has been affirmed amounts to this-Before we have sinned, we must fear sin, because God is holy: when unhappily we have sinned, we must not despair, because God is merciful.

Again; that fear may be said to be right which proceeds from right views of ourselves.If man were as upright as he originally proceed. ed from the hands of his Maker, even then, the example of Adam may teach us, that we have suffi. cient cause for the fears suggested by the weakness of our nature and the strength of our temptations, And I need not say how greatly the causes of fear are increased by that corruption which the sin of our first

parents has entailed upon us. upon this point I will not dwell. If any of your readers doubt the necessity of caution and apprehension, let him look into the state either of the world, or of his own heart, to be convinced. Who, for instance, can look into himself, and not discover III. But without more delay, I his weakness and corruption? Who shall now notice the third proposi has not, at times felt himself break tion, which I stated in the opening down at what appeared to be his of this paper, viz. that in the first strongest point? Who has not, in stages of religion, fear is naturally some particular instance, felt the apt to prevail over love.-When the most despicable temptation over eyes of a sinner first open upon the come him? Who has not passed, truths of religion, an awful prospect with the most painful rapidity, from appears to lie before him. He disa state of communion with God and covers, that he has long been sindelight in religion, to that of cold. ning against a holy and just Godness, and worldliness, and guilt? In that he has been "dead in treslike manner, let any person who passes and sins"-that he has stood doubts upon this point look at the on the very edge of perdition. He histories of Noah, of Lot, of Abra- looks behind him, and shudders to ham, and of David; and then say behold the mere plank, as it were, whether it does not become us to by which he has crossed the gulf. " pass the time of our sojourning He looks before him, and sees chasm here in fear." May I then be per- within chasm, which must be passmitted to express my hope, and to ed, rock upon rock which must be offer my humble supplication to climbed. He looks around him, God, that all your readers may be and searches in vain for many comdistinguished by a holy distrust of panions of his march, who he has themselves by a deep sense of reason to fear have fallen, and weakness-by a conviction that their perished for ever. He looks within, safety is to be secured, not by and finds nothing which corres"might nor by power," but by the ponds to the size and complexion "Spirit" of" the Lord." Let us re- of his dangers. Unaccustomed as member, that when in Scripture we yet to cast himself upon God, to are encouraged to be strong, it is to prove the abundance of the mercy "be strong in the Lord, and in the of God, and the power of his arm, power of his might ;" that when we his heart sinks within him. The are stirred up to "work out our terrors of the Lord seem to be let salvation," it is by the considera- loose upon him, and no deliverer tion, that "God worketh in us appears. The awful picture given both to will and to do;" that when in Job, seems almost to describe the author of the Hebrews collects his Own circumstances:--" In from their graves, and causes to pass thoughts from the vision of the in review before us the mighty night, when deep sleep falleth on dead who have fought and con- men, fear came upon me, and quered in the spiritual conquest, he trembling, which made all my bones attributes their victory, not to their to shake: then a spirit passed bestrength, but to their "faith"- fore my face; the hair of my flesh "by faith they subdued kingdoms, stood up." I am well aware, inwrought righteousness, obtained deed, that the awe which thus promises, quenched the violence of seizes upon the mind is not the the sword." Their triumph was same in all cases; that it will be

But achieved, on the one hand, by a dis trust in themselves, and on the other by a spirit of confidence in the Almighty. Their song of gratitude was, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy Name be the praise."