which others seem to know; when bearded to the proof of things, for which he has perhaps no proof to urge beyond the broad assent of an intuitive conviction, he is still more ashamed of being charged with superstition, or intolerance, or bigotry. Those boundaries which, to a willing mind, before put on no other than their true and real features of a happy security, are now too quickly made to wear appearance of an unwelcome bondage, or restraint. That which was meek and dutiful submission in the earlier stage, (and brought, as being such, its own reward with it) seems now a needless, or too great prostration of the understanding. And the like throughout.

Meanwhile, (observe) the youthful Christian's own best powers are not by any means arrived. These are the privilege of riper years; the recompence of a more tried and dutiful adherence to the precepts of eternal life. They cannot yet belong to the beginner. They may subsist in all their freshness, but they can not subsist in all their strength. Such as they are, however, in the warmth of them he follows on, perhaps, into a labyrinth of undigested human speculation, until his way is fairly lost, and

he is forced to panse from sheer perplexity. Bot shall he, when it comes to this, be able to trace all his footsteps back again?

I will not say this is not possible. All things are possible with God's grace. But it is most improbable, according to the general course of human nature, that such an one shall ever afterwards become contented with the meek and quiet exercise of personal piety according to the calmer, milder, and more sober views of the most tolerant of Church communions. Whether he shall stay within or go without the pale of that communion, he will too probably be led to take some vengeance on his past excess by running to an opposite extreme. And is not any such extreme as can be here ima. gined, although it may not bring the indivi dual soul in peril, to be accounted as an evil, with regard both to the present peace of mind of thousands, and to the welfare of established things, and to the best and most effectual prevalence of TRUTH itself!

But to return to the immediate point of difficulty which we were supposing. It is the infinitely greater likelihood, that the bewildered mind of the adventurer will then be thankful to secure the easiest retreat

it may, with thoughts confused and taste corrupted. Its simple relish for what once appeared so sure, and so sufficient, will at the least be found impaired; and, by a process just the opposite to the enlightening influence of real truth, it may discover that "whereas it saw before, now it is "blind!"

man.

a

Then comes the process of adulterating, or subtracting from, the simple word of truth; the dangerous course of condescension and concession to the wilfulness of Men will admit, because they cannot help admitting, that "it was not so," or so, "in the beginning;" but "because of the "hardness of" perverse “hearts "," they think it must be suffered now to be as those wrong hearts would have it! One thing is severed from the parent stem of FAITH after another, and taken and transplanted into other ground, until (it may be feared) the word of God and that of man are strangely mixed together; as if, in some respects, they might pretend to equal claims on our attention. The principle of unreserved alle

* See John ix, 25.

See Matt. xix. 8.

giance cankers and decays; and then it is, that the most lofty and the purest spiritual truths present themselves, to the more wavering mind, as less and less acceptable; since it is in the contemplation and sincere belief of these, that by experience we are brought to feel, and understand, that no disciple can remain with JESUS CHRIST, any more than he can come to him, except it be vouchsafed to him by gift from heaven. And if from the discovery of this many of our Lord's disciples went back, in the days of old, even from the hearing of the gracious words which proceeded out of HIS mouth, and walked no more with Him; shall we be safe, amidst a corresponding snare, unless we lay, and keep, a good foundation deeply in our hearts, that" HE, and HE ALONE, has "the words of ETERNAL LIFE?"

Or if men do not openly go back from Jesus Christ, nor yet avowedly renounce the Gospel; is it not possible the danger to the soul may not be less, but in some dispositions even greater, by reason that a desperate heresy, to which they may in cline, shall still affirm its fellowship with truth, and still contend it is agreeable to the

word revealed, and still "subscribe with its "hand unto the Lord "," and surname itself by that only name in which there is salvation? These may go back from the REDEEMER thus, and from the SON OF GOD; though they may still profess to listen to the TEACHER, and (by a marvellous inconsistency) acknowledge, as a guide, "the car"penter's son!" They may refuse "the "bread which came down from heaven" in this way, by corruption of the truth, as fatally to their own hope of everlasting life as by an absolute rejection of it.

Or, yet again, they may refuse it by a course still less perceptibly arrayed against the truth as it is found in Jesus; not by corruption of the Gospel, nor by an interference with it any way, but by a downright alienation and indifference, until they come to "care for none" of all those words, which are the words of life eternal!-until by sure, although insensible, degrees they settle into that calamitous frame of mind, of which we have so lively an example in the character of Gallio. Words of remark might only weaken the descriptive force of

Isaiah xliv. 5..