Crispus. I can remember, also, many joyful seasons when I have been in the lively exercise of faith and hope.

Gaius. Very good; but faith has truth for its object, and hope lays hold of a blessed immortality. Take away the doctrine of the cross and the promise of eternal life, and your faith and hope and joy would be annihilated.

Crispus. I have heard some persons exclaim against doctrinal preaching, as being dry and uninteresting: 'Give me,' say they, 'something spiritual and experimental.'

Gaius. Doctrines, it is allowed, may be so represented as to become dry and uninteresting; but scripture truth is not so in its own nature. The doctrines of the gospel are expressly called "spiritual things," which are spiritually discerned.

Crispus. Does not the term experience convey the idea of proof or trial?

Gaius. It does; and this is what I had in mind when I said the subject might be considered particularly. Though we use the term to express the exercise of spiritual affections in general, yet it is more accurate to apply it to that proof or trial which we make of divine things, while passing through the vicissitudes of life. Crispus. Experimental knowledge, we commonly say in other things, is knowledge obtained by trial.

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Gaius. Very well; it is the same in religion. There are many truths taught us in the divine word, and which we may said to know by reading; but we do not know them experimen tally till we have proved them true by having made the trial.

Crispus. Mention a few examples.

Gaius. We read in the scriptures of the doctrine of human impotency, and we think we understand it; but we never know this truth properly till we have had proof of it in our own experience. Farther: We read of the corruption of the human heart, and think in our early years that we believe it; but it is not till we have passed through a variety of changes, and had experience of its deceitful operations, that we perceive this truth as we ought. Again We read much of the goodness and faithfulness of God, and we subscribe to each; but we never realize these truths till, having passed through those circumstances in which we have occa

DOCTRINE, EXPERIENCE, AND PRACTICE.

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sion for them, they become imprinted upon our hearts. It is then that we feel their force and taste their sweetness: hence it is that

tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience. It was, no doubt, a cheering truth, at all times, that God was the portion of his people; but never did they realize that truth so fully as when they were stripped of their earthly all, and carried into captivity. It was then that they sang, as taught by the prophet, The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in him.

Crispus. All experimental religion seems then to bear some relation to truth. If taken generally, for the exercise of spiritual affection, truth is here the cause, and these exercises are its immediate effects. If taken more particularly, for that proof or trial which we have of divine things as we pass through the vicissitudes of life, truth seems here to be the object of which we have experience.

Gaius. True; and the more we have of experimental religion, the more we shall feel ourselves attached to the great doctrines of the gospel, as the bread and water of life, from whence arises all our salvation and all our desire.

Crispus. Will not the connexion between doctrinal and experimental religion account for the ignorance which is attributed to carnal men with respect to divine things, as they do not receive them, and cannot know them?

Gaius. It will nor is there any thing more surprising in it, than that a mercenary character should be a stranger to the joys of benevolence, or a dishonest man to the pleasures of a good conscience: they never experienced them, and therefore are utterly in the dark concerning them.

Crispus. Will you give me your thoughts of the influence of truth on holy practice?

Gaius. Perhaps there is no proposition but what has some consequence hanging upon it, and such consequence must be expected. to correspond with the nature of the proposition. A truth in natural philosophy will be productive of a natural effect. Divine truth, when cordially imbibed, proves the seed of a godly life. For example if there be a God that judgeth the earth, he is to be loved, feared, and adored. If man be a sinner before God, it

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becomes him to lie low in self-abasement. If salvation be of grace, boasting is excluded. If we be bought with a price, we are not our own, and must not live unto ourselves, but unto Him who died for us, and rose again. Religious sentiments are called principles, because when received in the love of them, they become the springs of holy action.

Crispus. Do the scriptures confirm this view of things?

Gaius. You must have read such passages as the following :-Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.-Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.-Grace and peace be multiplied unto you, through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord.-Speak thou the things which BECOME sound doctrine. I suppose our Lord meant something like this when he told the woman of Samaria, The water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life: that is, the gospel or doctrine that I preach, when cordially imbibed, shall become a well-spring of heavenly joy and holy activity, rising higher and higher till it terminate in everlasting blessedness.

Crispus. What inference may be drawn from all this?

Gaius. If God has joined these things together, let no man, whether preacher or hearer, attempt to put them asunder.

Crispus. Is it proper to distinguish between doctrinal and experimental religion?

Gaius. If by those terms it were only meant to distinguish between the truth to be known, and a spiritual knowledge of it, they are very proper; but if the latter be considered as existing without the former, it is a great mistake.

DIALOGUE IV.

ON THE MORAL CHARACTER OF GOD.

Crispus. YOUR late observations on the importance of truth, and the connexion between doctrinal, experimental, and practical religion, have excited in my mind an increasing desire after a more particular knowledge of the great doctrines of Christianity.

Gaius. I am glad to hear it; and if it be in my power to afford you any additional light on those interesting subjects, it will give me great pleasure.

Crispus. What do you consider as the first and most fundamental principle of true religion?

Gaius. Unless I except the existence of God, perhaps none is more deserving of those epithets than his moral character.

Crispus. What do you mean by the moral character of God? Gaius. The divine perfections have been distinguished into natural and moral. By the former we understand those perfections which express his greatness: such are his wisdom, power, majesty, omniscience, omnipotence, immutability, eternity, immensity, &c. By the latter, those which express his essential goodness: such are his justice, his mercy, his veracity, or, in one word, his HOLINESS. These last are the peculiar glory of the divine nature, and constitute what is meant by his moral character. Crispus. Are not all the attributes of Deity essential to the character of an all perfect Being?

Gaius. They are; but yet the glory of his natural perfections depends upon their being united with those which are moral. The ideas of wisdom, power, or immutability, convey nothing lovely to the mind, but the reverse, unless they be connected with righteousness, goodness, and veracity. Wisdom without holiness would be serpentine subtlety; power would be tyranny; and immutability annexed to a character of such qualities would be the curse and terror of the universe.

Crispus. But as God is possessed of one as well as the other, they all contribute to his glory.

Gaius. True; and it affords matter of inexpressible joy to all holy intelligences, that a Being of such rectitude and goodness is possessed of power equal to the desire of his heart, of wisdom equal to his power, and that he remains through eternal ages immutably the same. Power and wisdom in such hands are the blessing of the universe.

Crispus. Is the above distinction of the divine perfections, into natural and moral, applicable to any useful purposes?

Gaius. It will assist us in determining the nature of that most fundamental of all moral principles-the love of God. If holiness constitute the loveliness of the divine nature, this must be the most direct and immediate object of holy affection. True love to God will always bear a primary regard to that which above all other things renders him a lovely Being.

Crispus. I knew a lecturer on philosphy, who, by discoursing on the wisdom and power of God as displayed in the immensity of creation, was wrought up into a rapture of apparent devotion, and his audience with him; and yet in less than an hour's time, after leaving the room, he was heard to curse and swear, as was his usual manner of conversation.

Gaius. You might find great numbers of this description. They consider the Divine Being as a great genius, as a fine architect, and survey his works with admiration; but his moral excellence, which constitutes the chief glory of his nature, has no charms in their eyes. But if that which constitutes the chief glory of his nature have no charms in their eyes, all the admiration which they may bestow upon the productions of his wisdom and power, will amount to nothing: the love of God is not in them.

Crispus. You consider the moral character of God as a fundamental principle in religion; what then are those principles which are founded upon it?

Gaius. The equity of the divine law, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the ruined state of man as a sinner, with the necessity of an Almighty Saviour, and a free salvation.

Crispus. Will you oblige me by pointing out the connexion of these principles ?