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it is true, were men of powerful minds; but it was their superior spirituality that made their power the means of exalting the ages in which they lived. There were other professed Christians of minds as powerful and of learning as great as theirs, who did very little toward advancing the cause of holiness in the world. If then we would pass our days in the most useful manner if we would give the church and our generation the greatest reason to bless God for our existence, let our religion be of the spiritual kind.

VI. This kind of religion will best sustain us under evil. He who is accustomed to converse affectionately and delightfully with God-to lay open his heart to the influence of His " excellent glory" and of eternal objects, will acquire a capacity of enduring evil, altogether peculiar to himself. His frame of spirit, and the blessedness of that intercourse, make him in a manner invulnerable to evil. The day of trouble to the man of the world is insupportable, because, besides the evil of his unholy spirit, he has no counterbalancing good in prospect. Past prosperity cannot be recalled; the future is unknown, and may be worse than the present. The unspiritual, unexercised professor of religion, too, may not be prepared for that day: the hope which now supports him may fail him then. He will then need other evidences of the divine favour than those on which he is accustomed to rely; evidences which may not be afforded him then, as they are not sought for now. But the spiritual Christian is not thus forlorn in heart when his time of trial comes. The feeling toward God expressed by the Psalmist, " whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee," having been habitual with him even in the days of prosperity, he will not be desponding and heart-smitten now; 'for God, his chosen portion, remains the same, and his delight in God is the same also: and how small a loss can befall that person, how little can he be injured by any calamity in the whole creation, whose happiness was not in the creation, but in its infinite Author. Besides, if there is a man to whom the Father of compassion will show himself especially gracious in the hour of need, that man, doubtless, is the spiritually-minded Christian. Who is an heir of the promises, if he is not? Whom, if not him, does God love and delight in ? There may be room for doubt whether other sorts of professed Christians, - all other sorts, - may not be deceivers or deceived ; but who doubts his piety who lives a spiritual and heavenly life? Such persons are assuredly the children of God, whom God will not forsake in times of trouble. The night of their affliction shall be as the brightest and best of their prosperous days. They shall glorify God in "passing through the fire;" their end shall be peace, and they shall depart, leaving mankind impress

ed with the certainty, that whoever may find their hope of ultimate happiness disappointed, these men were more fit for heaven than for earth, and "have passed through the gate into the city" of God.

These are some of the considerations which show what manner of persons we all should be who call ourselves by the name of Christ. - But there is one objection which we fear will weigh more with some persons than all these considerations, however solemn and conclusive : it is, that the religion we recommend is not a practicable one. It may do perhaps for a very few peculiarly favoured and peculiarly situated persons, but it will not answer for the generality of mankind - it is too refined, too elevated, too difficult a religion for the mass of the people. It is not, we suppose, the import of this objection, that this is a different religion from that which the Scriptures teach. The scriptural certificate to this religion we have already presented. If there is a religion on earth that corresponds to the very religion of the Bible, it is unquestionably this. Other religions may not be scriptural, but no one can doubt whether this religion is either scriptural or true. The evidences of its genuineness are like the sun's meridian beams. The conscience of the world decides that it is genuine the religion of the Bible - the religion of God-the religion which God has revealed to man as the sure way to Heaven. But has God bound his creatures to an impracticable kind of religion? Or has he prescribed a religion for all the world, which cannot be practised by more than one man in a million? It is obvious that if the objection means that the religion which, beyond all others, has the best claim to be received as the religion of the Scriptures, is strictly, and in plain truth, an impracticable religion to the bulk of mankind, the objection is profane and reproachful to the divine goodness and wisdom, and can hard

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