comforts himself that he is not in the other; if he neglects the duties of religion, if he is absorbed by the world, if he violates the clearest rules of right, and wrong, he pleads that he is no hypocrite, no fanatic, that he despises the senseless, barbarous raving, which passes so often under the name of religion. And this is, perhaps, the greatest evil of enthusiasm; it is not that an enthusiast may not himself be a better man, but that he makes others worse men: for the publican says in his turn, thank God, I am not as this Pharisee, and then goes headlong into every sin, because he will avoid extravagance, hypocrisy, and ostentation: Thus it is that human vices and errors are perpetually acting upon each other, that we seize hold of what others do too much, in order to justify ourselves in doing too little, and are, on the opposite side, provoked to do too much, because we observe others to do nothing at all; the horrors of infidelity produce the follies of enthusiasm; and the follies of enthusiasm disgust men into the horrors of infidelity.

If power, and praise are the objects

you seek, under the name of religion, or, if you are mistaken enough to suppose, that that which is good in some degree is good in every degree; that the holy apostle, Saint Paul, when he talked of a righteousness over much, and of a zeal without knowledge, talked of those feelings which did not, and which could not exist, then, do as these men do, make a new god, after your own heated mind, and carry the narrow spirit of a faction into the great business of eternity. But if you really wish to excel all other Christians in your faith, and to exercise, most worthily, that religion which hallows, and guides the world, aim at that moderation which, while it is the most difficult, is the most unhonoured, the most unnoticed, and the most unrewarded, of all human virtues; do that which a Christian ought to do, without proclaiming that you do it; do not insult men to imitate you by the loftiness of your pretensions, but allure them to follow you by the sweetness, and beauty of your life. When you come world, let a vene

to pray to God before the

rable, and sacred decorum preside over

every look, every word, and every action; beware, lest you cast upon the name of religion the shadow of blame, or reproach;give us that piety which, while it excites feeling, commands respect; and then we will bear you record, that you have a zeal for God, and that your zeal is according to knowledge.

Zeal, without knowledge, is the most dangerous foundation on which religious education can be built up; for, where it happens to be applied to a naturally strong understanding, that can detect, in after-life, the excesses into which it has been hurried in early youth, it too often superinduces a perfect carelessness to all religion; a revengeful levity, which seems to atone to itself by indiscriminate scorn, for the follies into which it has been betrayed by indiscriminate enthusiasm.

But bad as this is, it is not the worst evil which is to be laid to the charge of enthusiasm; the total destruction of human reason, the quenching of every faculty, the blotting out of all mind, fatuity, folly,

idiotism, are the evils which it too often.. carries in its train. This is the spectacle at which they should tremble who believe, that religious feelings do not require the control of reason, and the aid of sound instruction; the spectacle of a mind dead for ever to all joy, without peace, or rest in the day, or in the night, the victim of incurable, hopeless madness: These are the proper warnings for those who are tired with the moderation of the English church, who ask for something less calm, more vehement, and more stimulating than they can meet with here: At this moment, a thousand human creatures are chained to the earth, suffering, in imagination, all the torments of hell, and groaning under the fancied vengeance of an angry God. What has broken them down, and what is the cause of their great ruin? zeal without knowledge; the violence of worship; passions let loose upon the most exalted of all objects; utter contempt of all moderation; hatred, and suspicion of the: moderate; a dereliction of old, safe, and established worship; a thirst for novelty,

and noise; a childish admiration of every bold, and loquacious pretender; methodism in every branch of its folly, and in the fullest measure of its arrogance.

Perhaps this sect is come too late; perhaps, in spite of their incessant activity, it is not possible that mankind should again fall very extensively under the dominion of enthusiasm; in the mean time, whatever i be their ultimate, and general success, this will be the character of their immediate proselytes; they will have all who are broken down by the miseries of the world, and who will fly to the drunkenness of enthusiasm, as a cure for the pangs of sorrow; they will have all men, in whose minds fear predominates over hope, profligates, who have exhausted the pleasures of life, will begin to blame those pleasures enthusiastically, and to atone, by the corruption of their reason, for the corruption of their hearts. Designing hypocrites will sometimes join them, and throw a mask of sanctity over the sordid impurities of their lives. It will be a general receptacle for imbecility, fear, worn-out debauchery, and designing fraud. It will nourish a scorn