for none of these things," or like Festus setting down all topics of Religion-even the most momentous-as" questions about their own superstition and of one Jesus who was dead, and is affirmed to be alive!" But then, we must say this comparatively only, and with anxious fear and trembling for all who suffer themselves, while the true light shineth round them, to close their eyes and heart to better thoughts of God. Paul does not the less blame himself for his former conduct, because of the ignorance which produced it. He does not the less exclaim, with all the self-abhorrence of true penitence and its profound estimation of personal guilt,—" I was a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious, yea, the chief of sinners!" And alas! therefore, for any man who contents himself with fragmentary notions of God, as the God of Nature, and of Providence, and of Justice, and of Law; as the benevolent Benefactor and the righteous Governor, and the protecting Patron, of his fathers, and his father's church and sees him not as the God of Grace; understands not his specific truth and will as revealed in the Gospel of his Son, and therefore "being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish his own righteousness, does not submit himself to the righteousness of God." O how much of reverence may there be for God, and trembling worship of his name ;

while yet

it may be said of us, as Jesus did of the Samaritans, "Ye worship ye know not what ;" and

as Paul of the Athenians

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as I passed by and beheld your devotions I found an altar with this inscription, To the unknown God-whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you."

Such then, being the natural Ignorance both theoretical and practical, of God, which may exist notwithstanding manifold advantages; let us consider, in the second place, that The Removal of this Ignorance is essential to true Christian Piety. Not indeed, that the existence of Piety depends on the degree of distinctness with which we may perceive the character of God. Very obscure conceptions may give birth to genuine devotion. But the purity and the moral influence of Piety do depend upon the general light which may be thrown around that character, and the aspect which it presents to us. To love and serve God as we ought, we must know Him as he is. "This," says our Lord, "is life eternal, to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent." All hope of eternal life, and all fitness for its enjoyment, depend on our becoming acquainted with the Father as he is revealed to us by Christ; for only such a revelation—the revelation of grace and truth— can win the affections and elevate the character.

For genuine Piety is not merely Reverence of

certain unseen powers by which the world is actuated nor assent to certain historical facts which are reported to us -nor following certain rules of conduct which are imposed upon us by authority, or custom, or which commend themselves to us as advantageous, or rational, or becoming-but it is the Exercise of the affections towards a personal Being, and the elevation of the character by the influence of those affections, into similarity with His. It is not mere belief of God, but belief in God; that is, not merely belief of his Existence, but reliance on his character.* "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness." And the heart can repose its confidence in another only as it knows that other; it can love only as it becomes acquainted with what is loveable. A child

* When we keep this distinction in mind, how vain are all the difficulties and objections that the man of mere Understanding urges about the impossibility of assenting to propositions which we do not fully comprehend. It is not in assent to propositions, whether many or few, simple or abstruse, that saving Faith consists; it is in yielding up our confidence to Him who makes those propositions; that confidence being grounded upon facts, (not speculations,) which exhibit to us his character. Surely I might have-and ought to have-the fullest confidence in the dicta and directions of Newton upon any point of practical Astronomy, though I might not understand, and therefore could not intelligently assent to, any one book of his Principia. We may know God, so as to confide in him and love him, without being able to understand God.

who has been sent for education to a distant country, may have some natural reverence for the Father whom he knows to be at home, and some desire that the reports which he may hear about himself should be satisfactory to him; but he can love that Father, (that is, personal affections can spring up towards him,) only as he learns to know that Father; only as his letters and communications unfold to him something of his character, and of his feeling towards himself; or when at last he returns to the paternal home, is pressed to the paternal bosom, and feels, for the first time in its fulness, what it is to have a Father, and to be a Son. And the reason why with all that fear of the unseen, and that reverence for the mysterious which must be allowed to be almost universal in mankind throughout all stages of their civilization, there is still so little practical influence upon the heart and life, is just because men know not Him before whom they tremble; they behold him not, shining forth fullorbed in all the splendour of his perfect character, as the Father of their spirits, the God whose very being is LOVE.

For who can love God while ignorant or mistrustful of God's love to him? Who can possess that spirit of filial confidence, and joy, and hope, and buoyant energy, which is the proper spirit of Christian Piety, while his conscience is unpacified

and his sense of alienation unremoved? We must in such a temper either boldly throw off our allegiance to Him, or we must serve him by constraint and with a heavy heart. Is this last the case with any one who is now reading these lines? Are you well-disposed towards Religion, and yet find it wake no note of joy within your bosom ? Are you

a conscientious man, and yet sensible of a feeling in you which, if you would let it speak, would say, "I would indulge myself away from God if I durst?" Are your very best feelings towards him more those of a Servant to his Master, than of a Friend towards his Benefactor, or of a Son towards his Father? Then, do you not need Illumination? Is there not something in the idea of God to which you have not hitherto given heed? Is not the very key to his whole character still undiscovered by you? Can you say that you know God truly if you know him not as your God, — your Friend and Father, to whom you could exclaim with David, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth whom I desire beside Thee?" Do you not need, in short, that the God of your fathers should be unveiled to you as he was to the Apostle Paul, that you might "know his will ?”*—That you might know HIS WILL: this is what we need in order to a genuine Christian piety: not his works * Acts xxii. 14.