thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, and hast made us unto God kings and priests." Upon earth, our love to God must still more decisively assume this shape of gratitude;"we love Him because he first loved us;"-and St. Paul, who so well knew by experience the motives that actuate the renewed heart, expressly asserts, that "the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that he died for us, that we who live through him should not live to ourselves, but unto him who loved us, and gave himself for us." It is clear then, that love to God, under the various names which it may assume, according as connected with his glory or our own interest, is the leading motive of a renovated mind. It is equally certain that no Christian, however exalted in divine attainments, can be said to do every thing immediately and directly from this most elevated principle. His love to his neighbour, for example, will not unfrequently be connected with minor motives. Pity, for instance, will often influence a good man to actions, which, by the theory, ought to have sprung immediately from love to God. Thus, with the primary motive, may be mixed various others of a good though not of the highest tendency. Descending lower, more doubtful motives begin to come in play.A large class of actions is influenced by a sort of harmless partialities, where, in strict speech, no inferior motive to the one before mentioned, ought to have been admitted. Again; a course of action, good in itself, is begun from, perhaps, an inferior motive; but the motive improves by degrees, and becomes sublimed from its more impure elements. A contrary case is equally observable: many a good scheme has been begun with a holy motive, but has continued to be pursued long after the original motive has degenerated. It is a common subject of complaint with the most devoted Christians, that projects which they commenced in pure disinterestedness, have involved, in the course of their progress, a degree of pride, party-spirit, obstinacy, and love of applause, which, like the" thorn in the flesh," inflicted upon the Apostle, has served to abase them in the sight of God, when they have appeared to others far removed from any immediate necessity for that humbling pro cess. The foregoing is but a very cursory specimen of the questions which may arise in the mind of the most intelligent Christian, in reducing the doctrine of motives to practice for the purpose of selfexamination. In an uncultivated mind, especially where the judg ment is weak and the conscience scrupulous, the difficulties will be correspondingly numerous and formidable. No person can converse with the poor and ignorant on subjects of practical religion, without perceiving that their want of enlarged ideas renders it difficult for them to view the doctrine of motives in a right aspect. In being taught the duty of examining into the state of their affections and heart, they are sometimes apt to become remiss in attending to the qualities of actions. The direct contrary was the more natural propensity; for the uninstructed conscience is usually quite content if the action be right, whatever might have been the source from which it sprang. As it is only the conduct that immediately affects society, men, in general, are attentive solely to the external demeanour; and it is not without some difficulty, that an uninstructed mind is led to feel the importance of rising higher, from the stream to the fountain, from the action to the principle, from the conduct to the heart. But this point once gained, the difficulty is often on the other side. Once persuaded, by whatever process, and whether truly or falsely, that his heart is "right with God," an ill-instructed person naturally begins to attach less importance to an examination of his conduct than so momentous an inquiry deserves. Hence, perhaps, among other reasons, the too common inclination among some of the religious poor to semi-antinomian preaching.They cannot conceive of an examination into actions, without connecting with it their former ideas of the importance of actions independently of motives; and hence practical preaching savours, in their ninds, of "legality," and a want of acquaintance with the doctrines of grace. It is often as difficult to convince an illiterate and self conceited religionist, that though God regards the heart, he inspects the conduct also, as it is to convince an illiterate and self conceited for malist of the converse of the proposition. If any reader doubt the truth of this remark, let him select a fit subject for the experiment, and try to touch his conscience with compunction for some of his practical sins; such as defects in temper, or little subterfuges and evasions in trade, and it will be well if he do not receive some such answer as, "Oh! I see you are for works," &c. &c, A difficulty of a quite opposite nature, which the poor and ignorant find in examining themselves on the question of motives, is by measuring their motives by their actions, even when those actions are of an involuntary kind. "If my affections were duly set upon heavenly things," said a sickly labourer, fatigued with the toils of harvest and the oppressive heat of a solstitial sun, "I should not have slept yesterday afternoon during the sermon." The intelligent reader will readily multiply examples, and deduce from them the necessary solution. A still more common difficulty in the examination of motives, arises from the infrequency of the practice. Few persons, comparatively, are sufficiently in the habit of analysing their affections, to be able instantly to retrace the motives of their conduct. When charged with incorrect or inadequate principles of action-and it is certain that all principles not derived from religion, when scripturally analysed, will be found such-persons in general are unwilling to admit the accusation, for want of really knowing what are the secret springs of their conduct. Self-knowledge is an advantage as rare as it has ever been considered valuable. A great point has been gained when persons can be induced seriously to ask themselves what are their secret views and principles; and till the importance of this question is duly felt, the most close and urgent ap¬ peal will be usually lost upon them. The decorum of the senate does not allow the imputation of motives; and though the pulpit is not restricted in the same way, ought to be, as the analyzation of the human heart is one of its most important duties; yet, care should be taken that there be no exaggeration, and that nothing be overstated, in order to make out a case sufficiently strong for the severe remarks that are intended to be nor grounded upon it. To the want of this sobriety may, perhaps, be imputed a part at least of what is frequently mentioned by certain preachers and writers, as the ordinary result of their exertions; namely, that flagitious characters are very generally arrested, while the more moral and decorous continue uumoved. The effect may, indeed, be often accounted for on the principles so frequently mentioned by our Lord in reference to the scribes and pharisees, as contrasted with publicans and sinners. The frigid pride of formalism, is doubtless sometimes a more impreg nable barrier to conviction than carelessness, or even hardened impiety, because there is less to shock the natural conscience, and more to 1 1 foster unscriptural and fallacious hopes. But, in the case of some who are most forward to apply what is said of our Lord and the pharisees to their own preaching or writing, a considerable share of the deficiency is on their own side. They roundly charge upon their auditors, or readers, motives which apply, in their immediate and primary sense, only to grossly vicious characters. Upon such conscience easily fixes the charge; while the moral and more respectable classes think themselves far beyond the reach of the animadversion. They are not enough in the habit of tracing their motives, and do not sufficiently know their own hearts to perceive, that in a certain sense the charge was well founded, though the instructor erred in his mode of attempting to produce conviction in those who were conscious that, in the plain and strict meaning of his words, they were unassailable. Our Lord's exposition of the Commandments, in his Sermon on the Mount, is an inimitable specimen of the mode to be employed in teaching such persons to trace theirprinciples and motives. And if, after such an example, I might appeal to any human composition, I should specify Mrs. H. More's dialogue on the same subject. It is in this way that the average classes in morals are best convinced. They do not habitually study their own hearts, and therefore recoil, with an impenetrable front, from the first unexplained allegation of evil motives. Some writers and preachers resemble scene-painters, who convey a striking impression of large and strongly marked objects, but fail in those minuter differences which distinguish one human coun tenance from another. The consequence is, that characters less forcibly marked escape in the croud. • See her "Two Wealthy Farmers" a tract which the writer of these re marks would feel inclined to place nearly at the head of her excellent and varied compositions. The judge mentioned in the Gospel would, perhaps, have sat easy under a common-place philippic against injustice, because, though injustice was the effect, indolence and the love of ease were the inciting causes. It was not a predilection for injustice that made him. at first refuse the suit of the widow, any more than a predilection for justice that made him at length grant it. A discourse, therefore, that was intended to come home to his case, must not have been a mere dissertation on abstract injustice; but must have undertaken to prove that indolence and the love of ease had, in his case, all the effect and all the guilt of this more startling crime, and that right principles and true religion are as much levelled against these apparently lesser sins as against others of more obnoxious hue. Or, to take a case of more likely occurrence; au instructor wishes to guard his younger friends against certain questionable amusements. He begins with exhorting them to look into their motives, which, upon examination, they find to be scarcely ascertainable; they are propelled, in fact, by a sort of giddy impulse, without any fixed principle whatever, and with as little intention of committing vice. as of practising virtue by the performance. Not content with this, and in order to make out a strong case, he charges motives which they unequivocally disclaim, and which, in their literal application, belong only to the grossly vicious. It is easy to see that, in such a case, not only does the weapon fall blunted to the ground, but new confidence is added to the accused from the failure of the accuser's principal allegation. To this cause we may, perhaps, sometimes attribute the inefficacy of some of the arguments employed against certain worldly practices. The objector, educated in a stricter school, or under the influence of better principles, feels that he himself could not mix in them without an asso ciation of ideas which frequently may not arise in other minds to which the practice is familiar. Missionaries among converted heathens feel sensibly the truth of this remark. In all such cases, as there is difficulty in analysing the exact motive, so there is danger in imputing a wrong one. From the preceding observations it is evident, that a variety of questions may arise in attempting to reduce the analysis of motives to actual practice. Another difficulty often occurs in ascertaining what motives are allowable, and what are otherwise. We have seen that the leading principle in the heart of the Christian, is love to God, and zeal for his glory; but this evidently does not exclude many others of a more or less excellent though subordinate nature. The Scriptures themselves frequently appeal to other motives, though to none which are not in some way connected with that first and best of incitements. But an entrance being once allowed, as of necessity there must be, to secondary motives, the question is where to stop. The contrite and well-informed Christian will perhaps readily ascertain this in his own case; but among the world at large, and even in books of moral and religious instruction, the standard is so often false or defective, that a code of universal application could not easily be contrived. So gross in many cases are the conceptions respecting legitimacy of motive, that much would have been done if the subjects of the experiment could only be taught to subtract from under the head of innocent, such undeniably un-Christian ones as pride, covetousness, and a long class of equally common, but equally injurious, principles of action. Greater difficulty, indeed, occurs in teaching men to exclude others which they had always been taught to consider positive virtues; such, for example, as emulation and the love of praise. Indeed, till all the instructions of childhood and all the affairs of life shall be conducted on truly Christian principles, the great majority of persons will necessarily grow up with such incorrect ideas respecting the quality of actions and motives as are not easily effaced. A large class even of books of professed instruction tends to foster these erroneous sentiments. Self-love, love of the world, and an appetite for distinction, are among the leading incentives inculcated upon the youthful mind; and it is not, generally speaking, till practical religion has taken extensive possession of the heart, that the sinfulness of such principles of action is so much as suspected. But it is time to proceed to a few practical remarks relative to the duty in question. And, in the first place, it may be right to repeat, that it is a duty; a duty which, however far removed from the ordinary habits of the large body of nominal Christians, is one which cannot be omitted with safety or impunity. "God searcheth the heart;" and he who would truly serve God must direct his first inquiries to the same point. Our Lord constantly insisted upon the importance of this duty, teaching that "a cup of cold water given to a disciple, in the name of a disciple," that is, from a principle of Christian love, shall not lose its reward; while, as his Apostle teaches, the gift of all our goods to the poor, or of our body to be burned, without this internal charity, would be of no avail. To examine into our motives is also very important for our comfort as Christians. Beset with innumerable snares and temptations, it is consolatory to find, upon calm deliberation, accompanied with earnest prayer to the Searcher of all hearts, that our affections are supremely, though, alas, how dividedly! fixed upon heavenly objects; and that, with all our manifold sins and imperfections, we can still say, with sincerity of heart, "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee." Without this frequent examination, we must necessarily live in a state of uncertainty: we can have no just evidence of our services being accepted, or enjoy any legitimate consolation, amidst the troubles of life. We may be deceiving our selves; for many persons, for want of inquiry, take for granted that their motives are good, when, in point of fact, they are quite unscriptural and corrupt. The pharisees, for example, conscious of the exterior propriety of their conduct, and flattered by the applause of mankind, seem never to have suspected, till told so by our Lord, that their hearts were full of uncleanness and iniquity. It is not, till after deep self-examination and fervent prayer, that a person can feel that solid satisfaction enjoyed by the Apostle, when he said, "Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world." conduct was strongly tinged with the sacred infusion. As the prevailing passions of the soul, by constantly affecting the muscles of the countenance, stamp, at length, a wellmarked index of the character, so an habitual course of holy, active, humble, and self-denying conduct indicates the permanent influence of sacred motives, even when the motives themselves may not come immediately into prominent exercise. The dejected Christian may often derive consolation from this reflection. In giving the cup of cold. water, he might not, perhaps, at the moment, particularly have called to his recollection the paramount principle of love to God and faith in Christ; yet, if upon conscientious self-examination, he perceive reason to conclude that that principle is deeply interwoven in his heart, it is not to be doubted but that the individual act was sanctified by the prevailing habit. God is not a hard master; "he knoweth whereof we are made;" he perceives and pities our weakness; and where the predominant motive is rightwhere the leading and constraining principles are faith and love, and a desire for the Divine glory-he condescends to regard the general tenour of the character, and to forgive the innumerable sins and imperfections which deface so many of its individual parts. The importance of the duty once fixed in the mind, and the practice of it matured into a habit, it is of great moment to our spiritual peace that we endeavour to possess an enlightened as well as tender conscience. This will prevent much of that morbid depression which It may also conduce to the comwe perceive in some sincere but ill-fort of a dejected Christian, in exainstructed Christians, who, by car- mining into his motives, to recur rying the practice to an extreme to the idea already mentioned, that which no human character can bear, secondary motives are admissible, deprive themselves of those com- where they are duly subordinated forts which their circumstances so to the supreme. Even self-love, imperatively require. A beneficial thus purified and connected with rule, in such cases, is to look at the glory of God, is not an unhabitual rather than individual christian principle. Moses is exmotives. A variety of actions may pressly applauded for his conduct have been performed in the course in quitting the worldly splendours of the day, without any immediate of Egypt, though the motive asreference to the great master prin- signed for it is, that he had ciple; while yet, upon a conscien- respect to the recompence of the tions examination of the bent of the reward.'" Indeed, in a majority of mind, it will perhaps be seen that the cases, mixed and secondary motives whole current of the affections and will be found to be those which |