is accomplished and great in knowledge, virtue, and morals, and he will listen to you with rapture; but maintain a contrary statement; tell him that his light is darkness, his wisdom folly, his virtues scanty and only specious, his corruptions many, and you will be heard with dislike, and treated with

scorn.

I fear, said Osborne, that in many cases the great and peculiar truths of revelation are not properly inculcated by those who undertake to inculcate them. I am not censuring; but I apprehend that the soft whisper of peace is often uttered where the faithful voice of alarm would be more appropriate.

That there is too much ground, said Bernard, for such a remark, I do not deny. The laity are not, I fear, the only part of the community who are strangers to the moral nature and condition of man. But, as you, I would utter no censure: the matter does not belong to us.

It does not, said Osborne; but we may examine a matter of general interest, provided that we do it in a right spirit, and with a proper aim.

There is such a thing, said Bernard, as untempered mortar. Too many of our religious instructers, I think, have forgotten that one great part of their office is, to speak so, to strip off the glittering incrustations of pride, and to lay open, for the inspection of the astonished eye, the whole moral fabric, with all its chambers of darkness, pollution, and vanity.

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He who does not lead man to know himself, will never lead him to know any thing aright.

We concur in opinion, said Osborne; conversion is a work of divine agency; but since the means which God generally uses in effecting it, is the public ministration of divine truth, the more pure and perfect that ministration is, the greater may be expected to be the effects and fruits of it.

It seems reasonable, said Bernard, to think so. Conversion, questioned by some, laughed at by others, and neglected by most, is a great and divine work, a second creation, a reduction of a moral chaos to order and beauty; and he is the truly wise man who, if he be unconverted, seeks it, and who, if he be converted, improves it,

If there be nothing in religion but rite, notion, custom, or hereditary profession, then must our readers number our aged collocutors among fanatics and enthusiasts; but if religion be the wisdom and power of God, enlightening the mind, purifying the heart, and bringing the practice continually to a nearer conformity with the only standard of moral rectitude, it may be more just to enrol them among the wise and good, whose glory shall never fade, and whose happiness shall never cease.

CHAP. XXXIII.

ESSENTIALS IN RELIGION.

RELIGION is a subject, said Osborne, of such magnificence, extent, and variety, that it often compels me to feel and avow the weakness of the human mind. From the examination of what is profound and abstruse, I am often glad to turn away to the view of what is more obvious and familiar.

That, said Bernard, is the experience of the wise and sober. Religion deals much with invisibles and infinites. Its higher topics teach us the immensity of the divine wisdom and the limited operations of our faculties. I occasionally dwell upon them; for when they are discreetly used, they are subservient to our edification.

But, said Osborne, you make a distinction between the truths of religion, and you give more attention to some than to others.

I seldom employ my mind, said Bernard, on those tenets that divide Christians, and are made the badges of distinct denominations. So far as those points are Scriptural I would hold them, but I would not receive them as they are moulded by human ima

gination. I wish to adhere to the Bible: when I cleave to its language I must be right, though I may not wholly understand it. I distinguish between religion and philosophy, between God's truth and man's metaphysics, between the sacred text and the human comment.

I think such conduct judicious, said Osborne; if this distinction were duly regarded, far less importance would be attached to what in fact are only metaphysical lucubrations.

After all that has been advanced, said Bernard, on metaphysical subjects both in pagan and Christian schools, they still remain in obscurity. There is a "Ne plus ultra" in knowledge; and if God has said, let there be darkness, in vain does man presumptuously say, let there be light. We are not to know all things. The counsels of God are, I conceive, but partially known by the highest orders of spiritual beings; how little then do we see of them! We may fabricate theories, support them with arguments, adorn them with the flowers of rhetoric, and maintain them with pertinacity. We may thus display our ingenuity and learning; but we, in fact, only construct an intellectual or literary Babel. I leave mysteries as they are proposed in Scripture; I have no desire to be wiser than I think God intends that I should be. If I venture at any time to guess, yet I never venture to dogmatise.

Such a sober, modest, and discreet mode of pro

ceeding, said Osborne, will not in our restless day satisfy those bold and inquisitive spirits, who are far more solicitous to know what cannot be known, than they are to improve the most plain and important truths. But what truths do you account the essential truths of religion?

With me, said Bernard, the doctrine of the Trinity, redemption, sanctification, human depravity, faith, holiness, obedience, future judgment, rewards and punishments, are essential matters.

But these topics, said Osborne, are put before us in a great variety of ways by different theologians. : Undoubtedly they are, said Bernard; and our libraries abound with volumes on these subjects, in which they are treated variously; but nine-tenths of what has been advanced by the learned and sagacious has been advanced, I think, to very small purpose. As to the Trinity for instance; "The Trinity in Unity, and the Unity in Trinity is to be worshipped:" but what benefit do we derive from disquisitions about spiritual essence, and the modes of its existence? Do they throw any light on the subject; or are they really any other than human appendages? I pray for, and depend upon, divine influence; but reasonings about the modes of divine agency on the soul, about resistibility and defectibility, are only the musings of men. I acknowledge human depravity: it is not only revealed, but it is seen and felt but a thousand fine ideas about will,