of reason for example, submissive obedience, contrition, prostration of the soul, prayer, entire dependence, and resignation. These belong, as I have said, to the heart or will more than to the undèrstanding. They do not depend upon the activity of a discursive faculty. They are acts at which Reason naturally revolts, because every one of them implies its insufficiency. On the other hand, Reason may confirm our internal sentiment, or may inform those who are in darkness, that such acts are expedient and necessary for our spiritual growth, just as it may inform the healthy that their daily food is necessary as well as those who are without a natural appetite; and that sleep and exercise contribute to the health of the body. But when the natural appetite is preserved, in a sound state of the body, these things are practised without reasoning. And, on the same ground, we may presume, that the offering of that heart must be cold, which is prompted by reason more than by affection. As there is a natural appetite, independent of Reason; so is there a spiritual hunger and thirst, which need not apply to Reason for food, either as to time or quantity.

Submissive obedience is what we require from the creatures below us, which we suppose to be destitute of Reason, and from our children before they attain to it. As an act of homage paid to the Supreme Governor of the universe, it is that entire conformity to the Divine will, which the whole creation is strictly bound to observe, and which no living creature, ca

pable of knowing that there is a God, that is not in some degree estranged from Him in heart and affection, can resist.

Contrition or sorrow for transgression has no necessary connexion with a reasoning faculty. It does not spring from Reason: it is more allied to Love and Fear.

Prostration of the soul is the feeling of complete unworthiness experienced by a finite creature absorbed in suppliant adoration, and overwhelmed with the glories and perfections of a Being infinite in power, wisdom, and goodness. It is the act of a created intelligence, submitting all the strength of the understanding, the affections of the heart, and the treasures of acquired knowledge, to the great Giver of all, with a secret acknowledgment of their utter insignificance; and counting the highest human excellence, but as the flower of the field in the presence of his glorious Majesty.

Prayer and supplication, analogous to the cries and moving complaints of a tender infant soliciting maternal regard, and making known its wants, are the spiritual sighs and aspirations of the soul offered up in moments of weakness and affliction, when it is enabled to approach the throne of Mercy with the petition for a little strength and consolation from the Universal Parent.

Now it is obvious, that, the more a rational faculty is enlarged, and dependent upon its own resources, shifts, and calculations, which are all outward, the

less is it disposed by its own nature and constitution to seek for invisible help. Its wants must be supplied from the stores of its own sufficiency: and therefore it disdains to make application for assistance to any Power which it cannot command. This every day's experience shows us to be the case with the great masters of Human Reason. These, who would controul moral events by the wisdom of their own counsels and the strength of their own arm, would treat even Roman piety as superstition, if, in this Christian age, it were proposed to them for imitation. Yet, with all their arts and policy, how frequently abortive are their schemes! It is, indeed, true that worldly successes are often produced by worldly measures: "for the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light. Wise, therefore, in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight, they laugh at the simple-hearted who look up to heaven in their extremity. And, in the short reckoning of these, he that trusts in Providence is an enthusiast, because the ungodly are seen to flourish-perhaps only for a short season, in a few splendid undertakings, that entail no blessing!

Therefore, Dependence upon Providence and resignation to his will are from the same root of humility, the immediate growth of Religion, not of Reason. For the whole object of outward instruction, building as it does upon human experience, is to make men. dependent upon their own sagacity in their intercourse with the world. And the natural effect is a steadiness

of purpose, in pursuing the schemes of life, rational they may be called, if judiciously planned, and perhaps not unlawful, yet, on the whole, tending to exalt the sufficiency of Reason. This is the natural effect, and we contend for nothing more. Reason, subjected to a higher principle, in all its movements, affords no ground for animadversion: governing a higher principle, it subverts the whole moral economy of man, proposes the lesser interests as of more importance than the greater, and, with seeming and specious consistency, introduces a real anarchy.

Constant dependence upon Providence, and humble reliance on divine help, accompanied with the diligent exercise and sanctified use of the natural faculties, bring the mind down from its lofty seat, as a selfsufficient agent, into a total surrender of its own might and power, and an acknowledgment of the dominion being vested in one Supreme God over all.

Thus we see that all the Christian virtues which really dignify the human mind in the sight of God, are virtues of Humility, and tend to reduce it in its own estimation, increasing in strength as the natural powers of intellect are brought into obedience: while those, which exalt it in the common estimation of the world, are virtues of an opposite character.

We have thus pointed out the means by which the mind is to grow in grace; in other words, by which its spiritual faculties become enlarged, and the spiritual senses are, as it were, quickened with a new life; and we perceive that they differ essentially from

the means by which the natural faculties are expanded. For, it is not by intense application of these, and by labour of intellect, as in the study of any science, nor by adding traditionally proposition to proposition, however excellent, in Divinity so called, that spiritual growth, from stature to stature, is attained. But it is by mental engagements of a totally different kind, by no means confined to a state of abstract and indolent meditation: as humility, patience, charity, innocency of life, purity of conduct, piety, resignation, prayer, and supplication.

These are the exercises-the wings of the soul on which it rises to the source of divine wisdom,—the state of spiritual hunger in which it is fitted to receive the supply of heavenly manna and of daily bread,— the pure unclouded Eden of the heart, in which the light of Truth finds a ready entrance, to illuminate with Divine counsel, and to warm with the influence of Divine Love.