his journey was not so consistent or vigorous as he could desire it to have been: he should, doubtless, look rather to present than to past circumstances for the evidence of his state before God. He should rather ask the practical question, Whereas I was blind, do I now see? 1han confine himself to such inquiries, as, when and how he began to see at all. If his heart be really right before God, if he be walking holily and consistently in true faith and obedience, if his Saviour be precious to him, if the evidences of conversion be conspicuous in his character, he has plain and convincing proof that he is now at least running well, whenever or however his race may have first commenced. This conviction, therefore, ought to cheer his mind and sustain bis progress; that while he sorrows over his early deficiencies, he may not sorrow as those without hope; that while he learns the painful lessons of humility and self-distrust, he may not doubt of that mercy of God which has made a way for his escape, and enabled him at length to attain a more sincere and consistent character.

But, although these considerations should encourage the humble penitent who is "writing bitter things against himself," and who perhaps despairs of mercy because he has not hitherto run in the ways of God so consistently as he feels it was his duty and his privilege to do; it must not be denied, that a hopeful and satisfactory commencement of a religious course is always desirable, and usually furnishes the best omen of future progress. It is true, that the racer who appeared wavering, careless, or ignorant at the outset of his course, may at length win the prize, and therefore ought to persist in his undertaking with new alacrity, rather than despair because of his early failings; yet this is not ordinarily the case either in temporal or spiritual affairs. He who begins all will usually end ill, It is im

portant, therefore, that even the very first steps in religion as well as the remainder of the race should be correctly and earnestly pursued.

The question, then, which forms the first head of our inquiry is, How we may judge when a person sets out really well in his religious course? To this I would reply, that he may be said to have begun well when repentance, faith, love, and humility, are in due existence and exercise. Let us briefly touch upon each of these points.

1. In the first place, a person cannot be said to begin to run well where repentance is not deep and conspicuous.-The structure which would rise high, and be truly solid, must have a firm foundation. To speak of joy and peace where there has not been true godly sorrow, is but self-deception. Our Lord has described some who received the word with joy; it sprang up quickly; but it was not founded in deep penitence-and it quickly withered away. To have contemplated ourselves in all our guilt and wretchedness; to have felt the folly, the impiety, the ingratitude of sin; to have viewed, in all its terrors, that blackness of darkness which awaits the impenitent transgressor, and to have trembled under the awful apprehension of this becoming our own deserved lot, is a far more hopeful commencement of a religious life than the contrary frame of mind in which deep repentance seems to have little or no place. In proportion, therefore, as penitence is deep and lasting, we may augur well of the future steadiness and consistency of a person's character. Having seen and felt the terrors of the Lord, such a man will be doubly fearful of going back into his sins: having tasted "the wormwood and the gall," his soul will have them in such vivid remembrance, as to keep him in a constant spirit of prayer and vigilance, that he may not again be entangled with "the yoke of bondage."

2. The presence of faith alse

was mentioned as another evidence of our beginning to run well;-not perhaps that strong degree of faith which is attended with great joy and exultation; for many a Chris tian is running well, who by no means experiences those higher comforts in religion which are often the attendants of the full assurance of faith and hope. But the degree of faith which is sufficient to indicate a hopeful progress, and without which no consistent progress can be expected, is that portion of it which begins at least to purify the heart, to work by love, and to overcome the world. This portion, however small, will soon be visible in its effects and indeed there is perhaps no symptom more indica tive of a favourable commencement of a Christian course, than such a principle as makes earthly objects sink into their due insignificance, and heavenly ones become all-important; such a principle as changes the whole character of its posses+ sor; a principle, in short, which is the "substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

3. But repentance and faith are not all: we can scarcely be said to have begun our course really well, if our affections are not duly raised to heavenly things.-The true Christian, even at his first commencement of the Divine life, ought to be deeply interested in the great subjects connected with his salvation. His love should be ardent towards God, and universal towards man. A cold, unfeeling frame of mind is a very inauspicious beginning of that new life which is to lead its possessor to give up every thing for his Redeemer; to love the Lord his God with all his heart, and soul, and mind, and strength; and to become all things to all men for their good to edify ing. Indeed, if at any time we may reasonably look for zealous affections, and disinterested and eager exertion, it is surely in those stages of religion when all is new and delightful, and when the heart

first begins to expand with the early and cheering rays of the Divine favour. In this respect, as well as in others, the Galatians ran well: St. Paul, as we have seen, bears witness to their affection for himself; which affection was closely connected with their love to that God and Saviour whose name he had been the happy instrument of making known amongst them.

4. But, lastly, it cannot be too forcibly urged, that humility is a most important evidence of our running well.-In vain should we pretend to repentance, and faith, and love, without the presence of humility. A person who begins his career with a high idea of his own spiritual attainments, and thinks himself advanced in religious experience when he scarcely knows the first rudiments of the school of Christ, surely does not begin well. He will probably prove but a hearer, and not a doer of the word; his supposed graces will vanish away; and he will evidence himself to be any thing rather than a true disciple of Him, the characteristic of whose disciples it is to be clothed with humility. If such a man arrive safely at last, it will usually be through much tribulation, through unnumbered mortifications, and through a thousand checks to his spiritual pride. He will not run well till he begins to feel himself as ignorant as he is sinful, as low in the dust of humility as he is in the depths of guilt and transgression. Thus beginning, as it were, his whole course again from the point in which his footsteps first began to fail, he may, it is true, by the mercy of God, be eventually saved; but the dangers of such a fall, and the pains and uncertainties of such a recovery, are such as should make us dread the slightest approach to a scene of so much spiritual peril.

Thus have we considered some of the means by which we may judge whether we have really set out well in our religious course. Let us now proceed,

Secondly, to the very important inquiry, How we may discover when we have been hindered in it. -A person may, perhaps, under certain circumstances, possess some remains of religion, even after he has ceased to run well; as possibly was the case with some among the Galatians but, at best, such a case is so doubtful, the first steps of declension from the ways of God being so ensnaring, and oftentimes so fatal, that it becomes us to mark well the first symptoms of this too common and dangerous state of mind. It may guide us, in our investigation, briefly to allude to the four cardinal graces which have been before mentioned.

1. With regard, then, to repentance-a man has ceased to run well if his early impressions on this subject have died away; if he can speak lightly of sin; if he no longer view the indulgence of it as fatal to all well-founded hope of salvation; if he make excuses for it, or consider the high privilege of a believer in Christ Jesus as exempting its possessor from that constant self-distrust and holy caution which ought never to forsake us till the hour in which mortality shall be swallowed up of life. It is an important mark of running well, when deep penitence and godly sorrow on account of sin grow in full proportion with every other Christian grace, and are not at all weakened by those brighter views of pardon and forgiveness which are perfectly consistent with the deepest contrition and self-abasement.

2. We do not run well if faith has become weakened, so that we have begun in any measure to lose those vivid impressions of eternal things which once appeared to occupy the mind.-It being the property of faith to reduce the objects of this world to their diminutive size, and to bring those of futurity into full display, faith must necessarily have been diminished, and with it every thing holy and favourable in the character, the moment

the world has regained its ascendancy, and the concerns of eternity have lost their power over the heart.

3. Again, we do not run well if our spiritual affections have become cold; if we seem no longer to take delight in our religious duties, but find ourselves rather impelled by fear than by love in our discharge of them.-This wavering state of the character will be evidenced by our no longer joining with cordiality in the society of religious persons; by our dreading the reproach of the Cross of Christ; and by a fear lest we should be esteemed righteous overmuch. Where the spiritual affections are in vigorous exercise, such effects could not possibly have taken place; for it is the property of the affections, when actively excited, rather to urge us beyond the bounds of necessity and sobriety, than to per mit us to stop so far short of our duty, and to be continually questioning whether we are bound to act up to what, in a more tender state of conscience, appeared a bounden duty.

4. But of all symptoms of ceasing to run well, the loss of Christian humility is perhaps one of the most common and dangerous.-When a person becomes spiritually proud and disputatious, thinks that he knows more than all other men in the affairs of religion, neglects the plainer and weightier matters of God's law for difficult speculations, which minister rather to his pride than his edification, there can bé little doubt, that, how clear soever may be his creed, and how ardent soever his zeal, he is in reality going back instead of advancing in the ways of God. It matters little to the force of the argument what particular turn spiritual pride may take: for whether it draw us, on the one hand, to a cold, speculative, formal system of pharisaism, and dependance upon our own unenlightened reason; or, on the other, to a rash, lawless, and presumptuous one, in

Yet these, alas! are short-lived: the flesh cannot long retain those appetites, the excitement and gratification of which constituted one of its highest pleasures; the eye cannot long delight in seeing riches increase, or the pride of life minister to the amusement of the cold and sated powers.

Oh, Death! all eloquent, you only prove What dust we doat on when 'tis earth we love.

I cannot, however, but advert, in concluding these remarks, to a more stable as well as brighter scene. The Christian's world is as durable as that above described is evanescent, for "whoso doeth the will of God abideth for ever." It is not only pure and holy, satisfactory in the enjoyment, and capable of affording pleasure in the retrospect, but its fashion is eternal. Nothing can occur, even at death, to change the nature of the Christian's hopes, or to alter the character of his desires. The friends he loved on earth he shall love in heaven; the pleasures he longed for he shall there enjoy; the temptations he feared he shall there for ever escape. His Redeemer being the same "yesterday, to-day, and for ever," every thing connected with his kingdom is permanent and secure. Even when the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are, therein shall be burnt up, not one jot or tittle shall fail from the word or promises of God. The Christian, therefore, is secure for time and for eternity; for his trust being fixed upon the Rock of ages, nothing can move him from the stability of his elevation. Contrasting, therefore, these two opposite conditions-I will not say with regard to their intrinsic excellence, or their power of ministering to true happiness-but simply in the aspect already mentioned; the one, as being the sport of change and accident; the other, eternal and immutable: who but

must feel the importance of making a right choice on a subject so iutimately connected with his everlasting welfare? If we love the world, the love of the Father is not in us; while, if we rise beyond it, and set our affections on things above, we shall become inheritors of that better world of which it is the characteristic, that it is "incorruptible, undefiled, and fadeth not away." W.

For the Christian Observer. ON SOME DECEPTIONS TO WHICH MEN ARE LIABLE, ON THE SUBJECT OF RELIGION,

IF our Lord, when he addressed Martha in these words, "One thing is needful," referred to the necessity of an interest in the blessings of Redemption, he certainly intended more than merely to declare its importance in a general and indefinite manner. He seems rather to have been anxious to leave this stronger impression upon her mind, that an interest in these blessings was above all other things important; that, in comparison with it, every other object was insignificant and vain; that there could be no absurdity so great as indifference to the eternal welfare of the soul; and that nothing could compensate for inattention to this great concern. If this view of the subject be just, it must appear a matter of infinite consequence to guard against every false idea on the subject of religion.

The constitution and condition of man, however, are such, that he is by nature incapable of defending himself against his spiritual enemies. His natural ignorance of God and of himself-of true holiness, and of the exceeding sinfulness of sin-has so extensive an influence over all his actions, that were it not for the illumination and guidance of the Spirit of God, there is not now a saint in heaven, or a Christian sojourning upon earth, who could

It is by no means a direct and undisguised system of warfare, which the prince of darkness pursues against the children of men. His principal object seems to be to surround them with an atmosphere, as it were, of delusion and deceit, which serves to obscure the rays of the Sun of Righteousness, and to diminish their power, while he misleads them by false lights: he thus renders them insensible to impending danger, until ruin overwhelm them, and their everlasting hopes are dashed to pieces. Such being the case, it becomes a duty to endeavour to instruct those who, being turned aside by a deceived heart, imagine that they are walking in the paths of religion and of truth, while they are yet in the broad way of destruction. It may, also, not be useless to address a few simple directions to others, who, though by Divine grace happily delivered from the bondage of sin, are still greatly distressed by the evil suggestions of their spiritual adversary..

Our Lord, in his conversation with the young man who came to him for advice, and in his subsequent remark that many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first," most probably intended to intimate that not a few who look upon themselves as Christians, and who boast of their supposed conformity to the Divine commandments, are nevertheless destitute of the real spirit of religion; and must, if they remain in this state, be finally rejected and disowned at the last day. It is, therefore, highly necessary to be jealous over ourselves in this respect; and to examine into those various false appearances, which, though they may pass among mankind for symptoms of genuine religion, are insufficient to constitute us true Christians in the sight of God.

CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 201.

the various impostures by which men deceive themselves as to their character, would be impossible. The following instances, however, may deserve consideration.

1. There are certain natural dispositions of mind, which are apt to be made a substitute for religion, or which are falsely urged by their possessors, as among its genuine effects.

If, for example, a person be possessed of a kind and gentle temper, with benign and placid affections, which incline him rather to domestic enjoyments, than to gay and vicious pleasures; or if he be of a sedate or studious turn of mind, with a natural distaste to the company and friendship of the more profligate part of the world; how ready is he to conclude that he is unquestionably a religious character, or at least has religion sufficient to secure his eternal happiness! Thus a man may imagine himself making advances in religion, whilst, in fact, he has not moved a single step in it; his very excellencies being but of an extrinsic and accidental nature, without the smallest reference to decision or choice. He may be sober from necessity or convenience, though quite otherwise in desire: he may be externally regular and circumspect, merely from natural scrupulousness and delicacy of character: and all this and much more that is laudable, as far as it extends, may be placed, both in his own opinion and in that of the world, to the account of true religion; while, in fact, he knows nothing whatever of the real practical nature of Christian holiness. His ignorance on this subject is indeed palpable and manifest, from his endeavour to resolve all religion into these outward virtues; whereas the great object of the Gospel is completely to renew the very soul. Where the natural dispositions are licentious and unruly, Christianity accomplishes a thorough and universal

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