OBSERVATIONS.

OUR blessed Lord has taught us in the Beatitudes what Religion is.-I may, in contrast, be allowed to quote the words of a pious and wise writer, as to what it is not: "I cannot speak of Religion, but I must lament that among so many pretenders to it, so few understand what it means; some pla

cing it in the understanding, in orthodox notions and opinions; and all the account they can give of their Religion, is, that they are of this or the other persuasion, and have joined themselves to one of those many sects whereinto Christendom is most unhappily divided. Others place it in the outward man, in a constant course of external duties, and a model of performances; if they live peaceably with their neighbours, keep a temperate diet, observe the returns of worship, frequenting

the Church, or their closet, and sometimes extend their hands to the relief of the poor, they think they have sufficiently acquitted themselves. Others again put all Religion in the affections, in rapturous heats and ecstatic devotion: and all they aim at, is to pray with passion, and think of Heaven with pleasure, and to be affected with those kind and melting expressions wherewith they court their Saviour, till they persuade themselves that they are mightily in love with Him, and from thence

assume a great confidence of their salvation, which they esteem the chief of christian graces. Thus are these things which have any resemblance of piety, and at the best are but means of obtaining it, or particular exercises of it, frequently mistaken for the whole of Religion: nay, sometimes wickedness and vice pretend to that name. I speak not now of those gross impieties wherewith the heathens were wont to worship their gods: there are but too many christians who would consecrate their

vices, and hallow their corrupt affections; whose rugged humour and sullen pride must pass for christian severity; whose fierce wrath and bitter rage against their enemies must be called holy zeal; whose petulancy towards their superiours, or rebellion against their governours, must have the name of christian courage and resolution."-Scougal, Life of God in the Soul of Man, p. 3, edit. 1726.

Men fall the more readily into these awful