a spare and frugal dinner, what awkwardness, nay, what real distress, is felt! Now, there must be some cause to account for feelings so keen, and often so overwhelming. Is it that poverty is really a disgrace? Or, if Providence has placed a man in narrow circumstances, is this a matter which should cause him shame? No. And still, in spite of all our reasonings, distresses, such as I have described, are often felt. And why? Because poverty and privations are connected in men's minds with the want of happiness. And we instinctively feel the latter to be a charge, which implies no less than the loss of that which constitutes the true dignity and perfection of our

nature.

IX. ON PERFECTION.

However the most enlightened men may differ, as to the degree of sanctification which it is possible, in this present life, to reach; and however important it may be, to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion upon this point; it seems to me that disputes about the mere term perfection, end in nothing. The advocates for perfection deny that they mean, thereby, either angelic perfection, or Adamic perfection. It is not the pure and celes

tial life of angels; nor is it that bright reflection of God's image, which was the glory of man in paradise. What is it, then? It is, say they, the perfection of man's present state. And surely, about perfection, so understood, it is vain to argue. For is it not equally absurd, to assert, or to deny, the mere identical proposition, that man can attain to what he can attain to?

X. ON BEING WISE ABOVE WHAT IS WRITTEN.

There is nothing which, in my mind, has done more discredit to religion, and tended more to mar its symmetry and beauty, than the vain attempts, which the lovers of system make, to add to that which wants no addition, and to improve that which is incapable of improvement. Thus, in order, as it were, to enhance the goodness of God, we are often told, that it would have been in full consistence with his justice, to have left all mankind to perish in the iniquity of Adam. Now, in the first place, where is this revealed? And, in the next place, what does it mean? Does it mean that such a procedure would be consistent with any justice intelligible to us? Or, that our understandings are so formed, that we can conceive the justice of constituting one man the representative

of countless millions, yet unconscious and unborn; and, because he disobeyed, predestinating them to eternal misery, and creating them, in successive generations, as inheritors of that curse? But if it be said, "Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God?" I answer, Nay, who art thou that attributest to God that which he has not revealed of himself; and thereby defeatest the great object of the Scriptures, namely, to set before us the true character of God? To say that God could, in consistency with his nature, have pursued a different course, from the one he did pursue, respecting man, is, to give a different character of God, from that revealed in Scripture. Such representations amount, in fact, to this; that the adorable goodness which God's mercies in Christ Jesus display, is merely a history of the manner in which he was pleased to act towards us; and is not a developement of that which is essential and unchangeable in the temper and constitution of his mind and nature.

I will endeavour to illustrate my meaning by the following supposition. A fellow-creature has, in some given instance, acted towards me with unparalleled kindness and generosity. This conduct naturally produces, in my mind, not only a deep sense of obligation, but the highest admiration of his disposition and character. Now, would

not this latter impression be diminished, rather than increased, were I to give credit to the testimony of one who thus addressed me-"You may, indeed, rejoice in the benefits you have received; for such is the character of your benefactor, that he is quite capable of acting in a far different manner?" Such a belief might, indeed, enhance to me the value of my own good fortune: but it could not but lessen the admiration and esteem which I had before experienced.

XI. ON A MERE LITERARY KNOWLEDGE OF

SCRIPTURE.

It is amazing, in what different lights the same man will appear, in the eyes of the multitudes around. I have been told of a porter, who heard so much of the celebrated Pope, that he went to see him. But his disappointment was complete. He came back, and reported to his friends, that the poet was a little crooked thing; and that his own boy, of twelve years old, would not think him worth the flogging. This is but one instance of what the world is full of. Each individual is interested with whatever suits himself, in the character of a public man. Thus the statesman, upon the movements of whose mind an empire

may depend, is known, perhaps, to jockeys, by nothing but his seat on horseback; and to tailors, by nothing but the cut and colour of his coat. In short, he is principally to each observer, that which falls in with the habits of his own mind and interests.

This may illustrate to us the disposition in every man, in some sense, to make a god for himself; or, in other words, to see God through the medium of his own governing tastes and feelings. Of this many examples might be given; but I shall content myself here with one. There is, I believe, in what may be termed the mere literary man, a tendency to think God altogether such an one as himself; to think of him, in a word, as a literary God. His own heart is centred in the love of letters; his highest ambition is to be an author; and, therefore, the God he is chiefly conversant with, is the writer of a book, the Author of the Bible. It is not the door of mercy opened by a Saviour's merits: it is not the living bread which came down from heaven, or the well of water springing up into everlasting life: it is not the matter, but the manner of the revelation-the mode of expression, the choice of words, and turn of phrase-which engage the mind of the mere literary student.

Let it be that the Bible, even in these respects,