CHAP. XVII. The Inquiry, why fome Good Sort of People are not better, continued. THERE is one prominent cause which affists in preventing the perfons confidered in the preceding chapter from making any material proficiency; and it is the very cause, which, if it had been rightly directed, would probably, in fuch minds, have led to a contrary end-their choice of religious reading; it is, confining their pious studies exclufively and fyftematically to that low fstandard of divinity, which has cramped the growth of many well-difpofed perfons.. The beginning of the last century first presented us with this lax theology; which, though it has still its advocates and followers, they are, we truft, daily declining in numbers and in credit. The excess to which this deteriorated Christianity has been carried in a recent academical academical exihibition of "ChriftianLiberty," and especially in a late feries of theological "Hints," by a profeffor of the law, has, it is to be hoped, produced a good effect. When an evil has touched its ultimate point, May we not prefume, that the practice may make a gradual retroceffion to found principle? In these, and fimilar writers, no one. but fees that the road to heaven is made far more smooth and easy than the Scriptures have made it; fo fmooth, as to invite many, and advance none; fo eafy, that not only, as in the old code, thofe who run may read, but those who fleep may conquer. But what still renders this meagre divinity unfortunately too acceptable, is, that it teaches a complacency in our own goodness; that goodness, the acquifition of which is rendered eafy, because it falls in fo readily with our natural corruptions. The truth is, we require less to be excited to the practice of fome infulated virtues, which these authors do not neglect to recommend, than to the abafing of that pride which they rather fofter fofter than correct. When we hear fo much of the dignity of human nature, we fecretly exult in our participation of that dignity; we take to ourselves a full fhare of that stock of excellence lavifhly attributed to our fpecies, and are ready to exclaim, and I, too, am a man! These writers make their way to the affections by a plaufibility of manner which veils the fhallownefs of their reafoning. But the great engine of fuccess, as we have already obferved, is the prudent accommodation of the reafoning to the natural propenfities of the heart, and the flattering the very evils, the existence of which they yet deny. The reader welcomes the doctrines which put him in good humour with himself; he cordially credits the prophefier of smooth things, and is pleased, in proportion as he is not alarmed. That which does not go to the root of the evilevil which cannot be cured without being difturbed that which does not irritate the patient, by laying open the peccant part, will be naturally acceptable. Thefe Thefe writers are too much difpofed to address their readers as if they were already religious; as requiring, indeed, to be reminded, but not as requiring to be alarmed; as expecting commendation for what they are, rather than admonition as to what they ought to be. They take for granted, what in fome cafes requires proof, that all are Christians, not in profeffion, but in reality: and the fame uniform clafs of inftructions, or rather of gratuitous pofitions, is directed to the whole mafs, without any individual searchings of the heart, without any distinct addrefs, any difcriminating application to: that variety of claffes of which fociety is compounded. To the profligate liver, or the more decent fenfualift; to the sceptical moralift, or the carelefs believer; to all perhaps, if we might except that most hated heretic, the fanatical over-believer, is the one foothing panegyric, or the one frigid admonition, addreffed. We do not pretend to say that virtue is not recommended, but as Seneca and Antoninus had recom mended mended it before, so they had done it better, lefs vaguely, and more pointedly. Many of the virtues, by the practice of which the readers are taught that falvation is to be ob tained, they cannot but feel to be their own virtues; this, while it fets their apprehenfions at reft, naturally fills them with com placency in their actual character, instead of kindling an ardent defire after higher attainments. Vices, from which they must be confcious they are exempt, and which they have as little excitement as occafion to practife, are properly cenfured: but the evil dif. pofitions of the heart, which if infifted on and pointedly laid open, would set them upon examining their own, are paffed over, or lightly treated, or foftened down into natural weakness, pardonable imperfection, or accidental infirmity. The heart is not confidered as the perennial fountain of all actual offence and error. A theology which depreffes the standard, which overlooks the motives, which dilutes the doctrines, softens the precepts, lowers the |