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variance with the most urgent principles of the human constitution.

Now, to repel the contempt, and also the apparent common sense of all this resistance, we might easily demonstrate, that without any mitigation whatever of the spirit of Christianity, the service of God, would still remain a reasonable service. But we shall content ourselves with urging upon you one argument which the Bible furnishes, which is, that the world passeth away, and the lust thereof. There is a result pointed to here, ye sage and calculating men, who are looking so intently forward to the result of your varied speculations. There is an event which is surely coming upon you all, and which will put to shame all the glory of secular wisdom, and hurry to a prostrate ruin all the might and magnificence of your grovelling enterprises. In a few little years, and time will arbitrate this question. It will tell us who is the visionary-he who is wise for this world, or he who is wise for eternity. A day is coming, when the busy ambition of your lives will all be broken up- when death will smile, in ghastly contempt, over the vanity of earthly affections-when, summoning you away from this warm and comfortable dwelling-place, he will call your body to its grave, and your spirit to its reckoning and upon the falling down of that screen which separates the two worlds, will it appear that the man who has sought his portion among the schemes, and the pursuits, and the passing shadows of our present state, was indeed the visionary. With this element of computation do we neutralize all the contempt which nature feels

and nature expresses against the abstractions of a spiritual Christianity—and pronounce of him who disowns it, that he is indeed the blind and pitiable maniac, wasting himself upon trifles, and lost and bewildered among the frivolities of an idiot's dream.

On entering some busy place of commercial intercourse, and perceiving what it is that forms the ruling desire of every heart, and the ruling topic of every conversation-and feeling the resistless evidence that is before him, of the world being the resting-place of every individual, and its perishable objects forming all that they long for, and all that they labour after—and, at the same time, observing what a face of respectable intelligence is thus lavished on the pursuits of earthliness -a Christian looker-on cannot but feel the strength of that discountenance which is thus laid on the views and the principles of spiritual men. The vast aggregate of mind and of example in the world appears to be against him; and he feels as if left alone to his own visionary speculation, a gaze of universal contempt was directed against that peculiarity, in which he meets so few to share and to sympathize with him. But let him only look a little further on, and this will both revive his confidence, and retort on the whole opposing species the very charge by which he was well nigh overwhelmed. In a few years, and all that is visible of the mass of life, and thought, and ambition, that is before him, will be a mouldering mass of dust and rottenness in the churchyard. There is evermore a rapid transference of that living crowd, one by one, from the place of business to the place of

burial. In a few years, and the transference will be completed, and every one of these intense, and eager, and speculative beings, shall have disappeared from this busy scene, and shall have gone to share in the still more awfully interesting and important scenes of eternity.

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY

ΤΟ

THE SELECT LETTERS

OF THE

REV. WILLIAM ROMAINE, A.M.

IN our former Essay to Mr ROMAINE'S Treatises on the Life, Walk, and Triumph of Faith, we observed, that the great and unceasing topics on which he delighted to expatiate were, the atoning blood and perfect righteousness of Christ, as forming the great and only foundation of his hope and of his confidence towards God. These important doctrines of the Christian faith, form the no less favourite and oft-recurring theme which pervades, and is diffused through the whole texture of the excellent Letters of which the present Volume is composed. And though they may not be fitted to stimulate the understanding, or to regale the fancy of the merely intellectual reader; yet, to the simplehearted and spiritually-minded Christian, these precious and consoling truths, however frequently presented, will be felt in all the freshness and power of their peace-speaking, holy, and regenerating influence. In this respect, he imitated the example of the great apostle of the Gentiles, who expressed his determination to know nothing among his people "save Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

We have frequently insisted on one great claim that the doctrine of Christ crucified has upon our attention; namely, that, by the knowledge of it, we obtain deliverance from the greatest calamity which hangs over our species; and that is, the curse of God's violated law, with all the pains and penalties which are consequent thereupon. We shall, in our following observations, advert to another mighty claim which the same doctrine has upon our attention; namely, that, by the knowledge of it, we farther obtain the meritorious, or the rightful possession of God's favour; so that we do not simply enter upon the bliss of eternity as having become ours in fact, and by a mere deed of generosity, but we enter upon it as having become ours in equity, and by a deed of justice. Through Christ crucified we acquire a title to heaven as our reward, and that as much as if we ourselves had done that stipulated work, for which heaven was rendered to us as the stipulated wages: and this is a very different footing from that of the bare conveyance of a gift, for it is a conveyance that is secured and shielded by the guarantees of a covenant; so as to make it, not a mere act of mercy, but an act of righteousness for God to bestow; and we, in receiving, lay hold not merely of a donative, but also of our due.

Now, there are many who do not perceive that this second privilege, of being instated, through Christ crucified, in a righteousness before God, is essentially distinct from the former privilege, that of being delivered from guilt. They contemplate the whole of a sinner's reconciliation with God, as

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