the prominent and characteristic articles of the faith of those who planted the gospel among our heathen ancestors; of the leaders of the Reformation, or the fathers of Nonconformity; but it contains those principles which, unseen by themselves, were the vital essence of their moral and religious character, and which the peculiarities of their belief tended rather to weaken than to improve. In every age, mankind have been enlightened, virtuous and happy, or ignorant, depraved and miserable, as they have known more or less of those great doctrines which are the sum and substance of your belief, and which, "invisible or dimly seen" through preceding dispensations, shine forth in the gospel with meridian splendour. The doctrines in support of which the followers of Christ have dealt around their curses on all who differed from them, which have arrayed kingdom in arms against kingdom, torn families with dissention, and sanctified the breaches of the plainest principles of morals, are not among those which you profess :-but every thing that forms the heart to the grateful love and filial awe of God-every thing that prompts to patient suffering and active labour for the service of man-every hope that can make you triumphant over the evils of the world, and exalt the soul with lively faith in the inheritance reserved for the obedient ser vants of God in a better state-all these, my brethren, are preeminently yours. What should these things teach us? To bless God that we are not as other men are, and, proud of our superior knowledge, lose all concern to approve ourselves worthy of the better light which has been vouchsafed to us? while we disclaim as a pernicious error the expectation that man can be saved by faith without works, to live as if we thought that he might be saved by knowledge without practice? Our claims to the profession of "a doctrine according to godliness" are capable, as it appears to me, of only one refutation-and that is from ourselves. If we are foremost among those who sacrifice the honour and the welfare of an immortal being at the shrine of power, sensuality, or fashion; if our zeal is lively only in the promotion of those objects which may interest our selfish passions by increasing the diffusion of our own opinions, but cold and languid where the great interests of Christianity and morals are concerned; in vain shall we profess that we maintain the entire and uncorrupted gospel; the retort is ready in the mouth of an antagonist, "Where are the fruits of your profession?" So loudly does every page of the gospel proclaim Christianity to be practical religion, that the simplest understanding will draw the conclusion, that the creed cannot be right where the life is generally and notoriously wrong. If then we value, I do not say the increase of our own sect, but the welfare of men as involved in the overthrow of erroneous popular systems, let us not have to reproach ourselves with justifying the obstinacy with which men cling to their prejudices, by giving them reason to suspect that some essential principle of the doctrine according to godliness must be wanting, in a creed which does not make its professors zealous for good works. Make the name which characterizes your belief synonymous with that of patriot, philanthropist, Christian. When violence would wrest from your own fellow citizens, or the inhabitants of distant lands, the sacred rights of civil and religious liberty, let your voices be lifted up in that tone of firm but temperate remonstrance, which ultimately makes the most careless listen, and the most unwilling comply. Let it be among you that the friend of humanity seeks with confidence for patrons of those plans which aim to reform the moral character, and raise the degraded condition of the great mass of society; to mitigate the sufferings of the body, and dispel the gross darkness which overhangs the mind, and keeps it in thraldom to depraved dispositions and sensual passions. Let the eye which follows you from these more public duties of the citizen to the domestic circle, find your religious principles operating in the faithfulness and affection with which you discharge the great duties of the parental, conjugal and filial relations, adorning the more essential virtues of integrity, humanity and temperance, by gentleness of manners, into which the spirit of the gospel has infused its own mildness; constant in the duties of religion, and full of reverence for the name and character of God. Truth thus professed and exemplified will have a double blessing,-first upon yourselves, whose present happiness and final salvation it will secure; and next upon those who witness your conversation, whose prejudices will be removed, whose hearts will be softened, and a conviction of the scriptural authority of your opinions be insensibly wrought in minds which argument might not have persuaded, and which invective certainly would not have influenced. Had I not already encroached upon your time, I would gladly have addressed a few words to the two institutions which on this day celebrate their united anniversary; but I cannot conclude without adverting to and re joicing in the growing prosperity of the elder of these societies, in whose welfare motives of more than ordinary force engage my sympathy. Had not those by whom it was projected been fully persuaded that their cause was of God, and therefore must prosper, they might well have been dismayed by the inauspicious circumstances of its birth and infancy, when the doctrine of the Unity of God could only be avowed by braving the penalties of law, when the civil power looked with jealousy on their association, and when only here and there an individual could be found, who for the truth's sake was willing to encounter popular odium. The event has shown, that manly courage tempered by Christian prudence will overcome obstacles, remove prejudices, and conciliate regard, and in a few years change opponents into advocates, and enemies into partisans. The seed which was sown beneath so inclement a sky, that it might well have been doubted whether the binder of sheaves should ever fill his bosom with the increase, has shot up with a vigour which removes all fears for the future: the fields have long been green, and are rapidly becoming white unto the harvest. You need not, I am sure, my exhortation to recall and to honour the memory of those, who putting their hand to the plough |