as a Person; this address must be made in our thoughts; for though God is near to each of us here, he is far off, or rather unapproachable, as an object of outward apprehension. And our internal addresses to God must necessarily be such as to imply that entire Dependence upon him, which is the first of the affections due to him. This may be implied, by humbly asking from him some of the benefits which he can give us. Such internal address of our thoughts to God, in which our dependence is expressed by words of Petition, are Prayers. Benefits, as they come from him, and express his Benevolence to us, are Blessings. And as we pray to God for future or continued Blessings, we express our gratitude for past Blessings in Thanksgivings. We express our admiration of God's character in Praises. Such expressions of Natural Piety have been common in all ages; although, for the most part, mixed with vague or arbitrary images and conceptions, arising from the imperfection of men's moral and intellectual, and still more, of their religious culture.

568 Prayer, Thanksgiving, and Praise, are properly and primarily the language of each man's thoughts to God, when the feelings of Natural Piety have been duly unfolded. A man, in his Private Prayers, asks for Blessings for himself, and especially for such Blessings as may aid him in his moral progress; for strength to resist temptation, and to elevate and purify his mind. But also, since the affections which are due to God, arise from the condition of human nature which is common to all men, men feel that a common expression of such feelings, by assemblies of men, is also suitable to their condition. Accordingly, Public Prayer, by assemblies of men, and other public expressions of religious feelings, have been employed in all ages and nations. Such acknowledgments of the dependence of man on God, and man's reverence for God, expressed in words or by other indications, are Worship; and men have in all times and places worshipped God; although their notions of Deity have often been gross and fantastical, and their worship often inconsistent with moral and rational views.

569 Public Worship by assemblies of men necessarily implies Places and Times appointed for such Ceremonies: and these Places, Times, and Ceremonies themselves, are naturally looked upon by men with a religious reverence: they are fixed by a rule, and separated from all common uses: they are Sacred. Special Sacred Places, as Temples, Fixed Sacred Times, as Festivals, appear to be universal dictates of Natural Piety. Religious Ceremonies are very various in various countries; but some, which may

appear to our Reason to be arbitrary, prevailed very extensively among the ancient nations, and from the earliest times; as Sacrifices of Animals. These Sacrifices were understood as an acknowledgment of Sin on the part of the Worshippers, a Supplication for Forgiveness, and a means of Propitiation.

570 The Natural Piety, of which we have spoken, is a part of our Duty; for it is a part of the Christian Piety, of which we shall have to speak. Paul spoke to the people of Lystra of God, as manifested to man's natural reason by the works of nature. God, he said, even before the teaching of Revelation, left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness (Acts xiv. 17). And when he preached to the Athenians, taking occasion from an altar with the inscription To the Unknown God, he said (Acts xvii. 23), Whom ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. And he went on to deliver the views of Natural Piety: God that made the world and all things therein...hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell upon the face of the earth; and hath determined their appointed time, and the bounds of their habitation: that they might seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him till they found him. And yet he is not far from every one of us; for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are his offspring. So too the Psalms of David, which are adopted and confirmed by Christ and his disciples as a part of the Revelation of God, are full of the Recognition of God and his character, as manifested in the works of his creation. In these songs of Praise, God is constantly spoken of, as alike declared to us by the visible heavens and earth which surround us, and by the moral law which is within us; as in the nineteenth Psalm; The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handy-work; and a few verses later, The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. And Jesus Christ himself speaks to us of God who clothes the lilies of the field, and without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground. Thus the convictions of Natural Piety are adopted as a fundamental part of that belief which Christ and his Apostles taught.

The dictates of Natural Piety, in so far as they direct us to fixed times, places, and forms of worship, are also adopted and carried into detail by Christian ordinances; but for our purpose it is not necessary to dwell upon these in detail.

CHAPTER XI.

CHRISTIAN PIETY.

571 THE Duties and Affections which belong to Natural Piety are also, as we have said (570), a part of Christian Piety. The Duty of Obedience to God (548) is the foundation and measure of all other Duties. That which is wrong, is so because it is contrary to his Will. Moral Transgression derives an especial depravity from its being Sin against God. Sin is the object of his condemnation it is spoken of, in figures borrowed from the constitution of humanity, as the object of his Anger. Obedience to his Will, and the Dispositions which produce such obedience, are the object of his Love. Sin will be the subject of his Punishment, Obedience of his Reward. There will be a Resurrection of the dead to this end (John v. 28): The hour is coming, when all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the Resurrection of Life, and they that have done evil to the Resurrection of Damnation. And the life here spoken of is elsewhere called Eternal Life. Thus the Supreme Rule of Human Action, on which the final happiness or misery of each man depends, is identified with the Will of God, and receives its Sanction and its force from this identity.

572 The Will of God with regard to Human Actions is known to man, partly by Reason, and partly by Revelation. We have, in the preceding Book, given a view of that Morality which is supplied to us by our Reason; and in the present Book, we have added to it a view of Christian Morality, as it is supplied to us by the Scriptures of the New Testament. The Precepts there given point out the Christian's Duties, as they are expressed by means of special Precepts.

But the general views which the Christian Revelation discloses to us, also give us new light with regard to our Duties, and with regard to the Dispositions which are to lead us to perform them. We are taught, That our failures in Obedience to God's Will, our Sins, are to be repented of; that our Repentance must necessarily be addressed to God, and must take the form of a Supplication for his Mercy and Forgiveness, to be extended to us, notwithstanding our sins that (481) God has provided a means by which we may find Mercy and Forgiveness; namely, the sending of his Son Jesus

Christ upon earth to suffer death for our sins, and to rise again for our Justification (Rom. iv. 25). We are taught further (482), that God has provided means not only for our Justification, but for our Sanctification; not only for the Remission of our sins, but also for the elevation of our nature to that Holiness (470) without which we cannot be admitted to his Blessedness.

573 These provisions for the Instruction, Pardon, and Sanctification of man, impose upon us a far larger Duty of Gratitude than the benefits which Natural Piety contemplates; inasmuch as the eternal life, and blessedness of the soul, thus provided for, are far greater benefits and evidences of God's Love, than mere human life, with its accompaniments as discerned by reason. The Christian's gratitude to God is founded mainly on his Christian blessings; and ought to be infinite as those blessings are infinite.

574 The Christian is especially taught to look upon God as his Father. Christ taught his disciples to begin their prayers with a recognition of this relation: Our Father, which art in Heaven. The special manner in which Christians become the sons of God, is often referred to. Thus 1 John iii. 1, Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.

This privilege of being the sons of God, implies, we are told, not only that we have had great benefits brought within our reach by his coming on earth, but that we may, as one of the greatest of these benefits, become like him. Thus in the passage just quoted, St John adds: Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God: and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him. St Paul carries this further (Rom. viii. 14): As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear (ye are not in the condition of slaves, who obey through fear merely); but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. And in the same way elsewhere (Gal. iv. 5) we are told that God sent forth his Son....that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. And the Apostles

naturally and forcibly urge this as a ground of the Love of God: as 1 John iv. 9, 19, In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him...And we love him, because he first loved us.

575 The Love of God, our heavenly Father, like the love of a Human Father, tends to produce an Obedience of the Heart (284). So far as the Love of God is unfolded and established in the Christian's heart, it supersedes all other motives to obedience to the Moral Law, and becomes his constant and universal Principle of action.

576 The relation of Christians to each other, as Children, in an especial manner, of God their common Father, is urged upon them by the Apostles, as a motive for a brotherly Love, which ought to exist between them, and out of which all Duties to men must spring. Thus St John says, in a passage lately quoted (1 John iv. 11), Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. This mutual Love is constantly enjoined by the same Apostle as the evidence of our Love of God; (1 John iv. 20), If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar. The same is the general tenour of the whole of the Epistles of St John. St Paul, following the teaching of Christ, says (Gal. v. 14), that all the commandments are comprehended in this one saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

577 This Christian Love of men as our brethren includes, as St Paul states in the passage just cited, all other duties; and includes them in a form more complete than mere Morality can give them. This love will necessarily exclude all thought of mutual injustice and falsehood. The Christian teacher says (Acts vii. 26), Ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another? And (Eph. iv. 25), Speak every man truth to his neighbour; for we are members one of another. Christianity taught men that they were to reject the tenacity of their own Rights, out of which opposition and unkindness rise, and were to seek each other's good as members of one family. The effect of this teaching showed itself in the manner in which, at the first preaching of the Apostles, the converts threw their possessions into the common stock (Acts iv. 34); and has constantly operated since, to make those who are Christians in spirit ready to give and glad to distribute, and specially careful of the interests and comforts of their neighbours. In this respect Christian Morality has introduced into the world a standard much higher than the Morality of Reason.