matter of experience, we shall be ready to assist them to do so.

At present, I consider the case of the serious, the anxious, the impressible, amongst my hearers.

Whatever may have been your previous conduct, and with whatever particular temptations or difficulties you may now be pressed, Christianity invites you to draw near she says, in the language of my text, "O taste and see that the Lord is good." She says, by the divine lips of her Founder, "Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Some of you may have been formerly proud and ambitious in spirit; others inflated with human science and the vanity of intellectual might; others may have been contaminated with the vices, and sensualities, and profligacies of the world; others infected with the ridicule, and levity, and sarcasms, cast upon religion by men of ready wit and thoughtless minds; others may have been merely indifferent, neglectful, buried in the temporalities of this life.

But you have been led to pause. Some calamity, some of the consequences of your own misconduct, which you did not foresee; some stroke of sickness or death in your family; some sermon or devotional treatise or example of piety or portion of the Holy Scriptures, has brought you to consideration. You have stopped in the downward course of sin and folly; you are in a state of mind to listen to what I have further to say. I know not what may be the particular tossings of your thoughts at this moment; but, whatever they are, I have a message to deliver to you.

I invite you to make a trial, in your own case, of those practical parts of Christianity which become matters of experience, when they are duly received. Not, indeed, a trial of Christianity, in the sense of deciding whether it be a Revelation from God or not. To settle this great question, you must go to the

proper external proofs; and not think of meddling with the inward witness-a thing quite beyond the range of one unconvinced of the truth of Revelation itself. What you are about to do, is this. Being already convinced of the divine origin of Christianity, from its proper external evidences; and being persuaded of the excellency and sublimity of its chief contents, from the internal evidences, you wish to go on to something further. You have heard of that perception which Christians have of the glory and efficacy of their religion, and of that fulfilment of its promises, which constitute the inward witness of Christianity. And you now desire to attain a similar interior and practical taste of the truth and goodness of the Almighty, by making a trial of his word, and bringing to the test of experiment, in your own case, the reality of the blessings which Christianity proffers.

I dwell on this, because Satan and your corrupt imagination will instantly attempt to confuse and misstate the real point, the moment you are in earnest about your salvation. Remember, then, that you admit the being and perfections of Almighty God; you admit the bonds of primary moral obligation upon man; you admit the heavenly origin of the Christian religion. The question, then, now before you, regards, not the divine authority of Christianity, but the experience of certain practical benefits and blessings, which it promises to all who submit to its directions, and make a trial of its offers. It is not you, in fact, that are making a trial of Christianity, but Christianity that is making a trial of you.

THE DIRECTIONS, THEN, WHICH I WOULD offer YOU, in entering upon this practical investigation, are such as these :-Study Christianity in THE BIBLE ITSELF; trace out, in your own heart, the truth of its STATEMENTS CONCERNING MAN; PRAY earnestly to God; use the MEANS OF GRACE; keep your eye fixed ON JESUS CHRIST, the great object of the

Christian religion; and observe how Revelation suits

THE WHOLE OF YOUR CASE AND CONDITION.

1. STUDY CHRISTIANITY IN THE BIBLE ITSELF; comparing, in the first place, the general character of its contents, with the state of the world, and the mass of evidence adduced for the truth of the gospel.

Those who hesitate about Revelation, know nothing, generally speaking, or next to nothing, of the Bible. They have never attentively read, with the express design of knowing and obeying the will of God, if it should prove to be found there, the pages of the inspired volume. They take up their notions of what Christianity is, from its enemies; from the current misrepresentations of the day; from a few insulated, and, perhaps, perverted facts. They compare some gross mis-statements of the doctrines and precepts of Christianity, with their own off-hand judgment and taste, or even inclinations; and upon the appearance of incongruity, difficulty, impossibility, they doubt of the Revelation itself. In this way, the religion which they profess to inquire after, has never been fairly understood. The whole question has been involved in the obscurity which a vain and careless world, or a corrupt heart, diffuses, like mists, about the unwelcome but momentous subject.

This may have been your case, my young friends, in some measure; but it must not be your case any longer. If you would make a trial of the practical effects of Christianity upon your own minds, you must understand what it is; what it proposes to do for man; what it discovers; what it requires. To do this, you must study the Bible itself. You must come up to the fountain of life, and not drink at the scanty and impure streams of human opinion and passion.

Begin with the gospels. Read for once, in a docile spirit, and as one feeling something of his ignorance and demerit before Almighty God, the narrative of

the life of Christ, his birth, his miracles, his doctrine, his manner of teaching, his divine conversations. Something strikes you as you read. You feel a penetrating awe come over you in the presence of the Son of God. There is a majesty and authority in every thing he did; a sweetness and attractiveness which cannot but arrest your attention. You perceive what his religion proposes to do for man-to impart life. You find him every where speak of bestowing pardon, of raising man from sin and condemnation, of revealing salvation in the ransom of the cross. You stand with the disciples, and "are astonished at his doctrine, whilst he speaks as one having authority, and not as the scribes,"2

You have now fairly begun; you are interested; you have perused carefully the gospels; you perceive continual references to the prophecies of a preceding dispensation of religion. Turn to some of those numerous prophecies which the Evangelists notice as accomplished in our Lord's life and sufferings. Read the prophet Isaiah; meditate, with a noble penitent,3 on the 53rd chapter. You are thus landed in the Old Testament-the patriarchal ages, and the economy and law of Moses. Begin the Old Testament in its order: read the account of the creation and fall of man; mark the call of Abraham, after a lapse of two thousand years, when idolatry, in consequence of that fall, had overspread the world; see the dispensation of Moses, five hundred years later, rising out of the redemption from Egypt. Follow the annals of the people of Israel; connect the historical books with the contemporary prophecies; then intersperse the devotional writings, dwelling especially upon the book of Psalms.

What is the general impression of this course of study? You see one spirit pervade the whole. It

2 Matt. vii, 28, 29, VOL. II.

3 Earl of Rochester.

is one Revelation, divided into several parts. It proposes to bring man back to God; it opens a wonderful plan of redemption, which it gradually develops, till, in the later prophets, it melts into the Evangelical history. It bids man pray; it calls him to repent, to believe, to rely on the mercy of God, through an atonement; to obey conscience, to shun the society of the wicked. What does it promise? Not to remove all the evils of this life, which are the consequences of sin, but to allieviate the most pressing-to give pardon, peace, strength, consolation in this world, whilst it prepares man for, what is the consummation of its designs, the happiness of another.

With these discoveries, or rather new impressions upon the heart, turn now to the apostolical writings, the last and finishing part of the inspired volume, composed after the ascension of our Saviour, and the promised fulness of the Holy Ghost.

You see in the Epistles all the practical bearings of Christianity developed; the ends of Christ's incarnation and death; the virtue of his sacrifice; the intention of the Mosaic ceremonies; the preparatory and imperfect character of the legal dispensation; the perfect provisions of the evangelical. Much will appear to you mysterious, difficult, incomprehensible, in the details; especially at the first perusal. But you have now some humility of mind; and will allow great Creator to be wiser than man, the creature of a day. And it is to the general impression made upon you, as a serious inquirer, anxious for truth— conscious, in some degree, of demerit, aware of weakness and ignorance, that I am now directing your thoughts. I would draw you off from the consideration of the gospel in the mere aspect of its mysteries, to the practical effects which they are designed to produce.

the

You see Christianity is nothing more than natural religion amplified, purged, elevated, rendered practi