BRETHREN AND COMPANIONS' SAKES, I will wish thee prosperity, Yea; BECAUSE OF THE HOUSE of the Lord our GOD, I will seek to do thee good" (Ib. cxxii. 6, &c.). "And they shall build the old waste places, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations" (Isai. lxi. 4).

The distinction of ungodliness on incidentals may be governed 1, by the property implied, whether it belong 1 to the subject, or 2 to the object of ungodliness; as whether a man employ 1 his fortune, credit and other incidentals against the essentials of religion, or 2 his strength and talents and other essentials against the incidentals of the supreme Being; such as his name and notion with the persons, places, and things consecrated to Him. Misconduct in relation to such incidental property of either side, v. g. of either the subject or object of transgression, will be ungodliness on incidentals; of which there do not seem to be more than two kinds, or degrees as they sometimes appear, and these not rigidly distinguished in common discourse.

§ 1. The first kind is Profanation; when the sacred property or incidentals consecrated to or by the divine Object above mentioned are violated, dishonoured or abused, but not spoiled, stolen, embezzled, or otherwise unlawfully transferred from the sacred use for which they were designed, to the use of the spoiler or his dependents. But the profanation of sacred incidentals though generally less, may be as criminal as their stealth or spoliation in some cases, and exemplified also by chance in cases in which these cannot: a man cannot steal a temple for instance; but he may profane it, as we learn by some remarkable occurrences in the history of the temple of Jerusalem; among others, that by Antiochus for one (Maccab. II. vi). No spoliation of sacred property can be more base and impious than such an instance of spoliation as that: it savours of an unmixed spirit of contempt and aversion towards the Supreme Being to whom such places are consecrated, and

will admit of no palliation. It were vain to allege a superstitious or idolatrous use of the place profaned; for if any religious place is clearly devoted to idolatry or superstition, it may be pulled down or applied to a purer use, or a flock of sheep might be driven through it. But however the Deity may be disparaged by a false, pitiful or ridiculous opinion of Him, he needs not to be assailed through any place of worship; no villainy should ever be practised to degrade even a superstitious place, much less one that was dedicated, like that famous temple, to the worship of the only God.

In strictness a church or temple is profaned more or less by any misbehaviour in it during divine service; also by any remissness or inattention at such times. So is the name of God profaned at all times and in every place when and where it is "taken in vain." Taking the Lord's name in vain is the commonest case of profanation or ungodliness on incidentals: and THE COMMONEST INSTANCE

OF THIS IS PRAYER WITHOUT A JUST FEELING AND DUE

PREPARATION. Whereupon it may well be said, "If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may abide it? (Ps. cxxx. 3.)

Indeed, without any special judgment for the occasion, as the accident to Eutychus (Acts xx. 9) may be considered by some, offences of this kind appear to be visited but too surely even in the common course of events. For, to go no farther, praying inadvertently, or as before expressed, without a due preparation of mind, is often found to be a main cause of foolish and inadvertent talking; no very light fine, seeing it is taken from our constituents, and from some of the best of them: it would be much easier for us to be fined in the pocket. Which may suffice to be said of the first sort or degree of ungodliness on incidentals, v. g. Profanation, consisting chiefly in villainy and abuse of the same.

§ 2. Sacrilege, the other sort, is one that turns more on fraud and violence towards such objects than on those other qualities: when it will not seem material whether

the object be a person or thing. So that striking a priest, for example, in the exercise of his holy vocation, or tearing the gown from his back would be deemed a sacrilege, as much as seizing or stealing the sacred property and utensils confided to his use. We need not go farther than the Antiochus before mentioned for an example of this sort of evil characteristic: nor yet so far either in fact, having had an Antiochus of our own within the last four hundred years-a sacrilegious spoiler, whom the pitiful pretext of abuses could never screen from the merited censure of all his fellow-mortals who had no particular share in the plundered property; much less from the vengeance of that Almighty Being who owns himself "a jealous God" (Exod. xx. 5): and the beginning of his punishment was clearly seen in the continual depravation of his constituents; the end being placed beyond our observation.

CHRISTIAN MODES.

PART I.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD IN CHRIST.

CHAPTER VI.

EVIL OBJECTIVE CHARACTERISTICS.

SEC. 4.

IRRELIGIOUS-ON CONSTITUENTS.

1. Infidelity and Misbelief.-2. Self-justification, &c.-3. Wilfulness and Scepticism.-4. Swearing and Perjury.-5. Doating and Superstition.-6. Polytheism and Idolatry.-7. Apostacy and Atheism.-8. Blasphemy and Impiety.-9. Reprobacy and Perdition.

"Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.”—PROV. i. 31, 32.

HAVING considered the decidedly evil and chiefly aversive characteristic, Ungodliness, in relation to incidentals, or to things necessarily without the adversary or hating subject, we are now to consider the same in a nearer relation to the same, i. e. in relation to its constituents or things within, which are engaged as principles against their divine Object. And the best order that we can observe in relation to this unpleasant theme will be nearly the same--and its heads. likewise, only reversed-with that observed for its pleasing contrast, godliness on constituents.

§ 1. Following this order therefore, the first characteristic we meet is the antithesis to faith and fidelity towards God, here meant to be denoted by the compound term, of

Infidelity and Misbelief: as infidelity in its usual acceptation will signify only a want of faith; and that is far short of the evil characteristic; which taken in a religious sense or with reference to God, must not be understood as any simple property, but rather as a scale or progressive system containing various sorts, shades or degrees; the very lowest sufficiently formidable, and the highest, or top of the class most completely so. For infidelity may be either simple or extreme; the first when there is only a failure in respect, duty or allegiance without a division or transfer of the same; the second when there is not only a failure in duty or allegiance towards God, but also a division or transfer of the same in favour of some other object as aforesaid.

1. The first of these two sorts has also its shades or varieties often worth considering: of which one is mere Apathy, and would be like the infidelity of a brute, if brutes were capable of such a failing. But another shade is rather more sentimental, without being at the same time at all more rational; because it is a defect in reason, to overlook our supreme Object in the course of the services that we perform daily. And how often do we find men who are not devoid of feeling, nor of utility either in their generation losing the benefit of all their services and sufferings for want of faith in that divine Object, or by not acting and suffering upon a religious principle, motion or beginning! Men for example, who shall give bread, and what is more, employment at the same time to hundreds, without any idea of getting bread-that is to say, enduring bread, for themselves thereby-alas; how often are they found!

But what seems still more deficient and disrespectful in this way, to say nothing of infidelity, is the want of purpose that we often observe even in acts, offices and works especially subserving to religion. It is bountiful-it might gratify the attention even of a celestial spirit to see, if he could only see, as we do, the singers go before, the minstrels follow after: and not look also, as we cannot so well, into their hearts, and see them